Tracking occupational exposure and disease

This concern can be attributed to various factors including: the aging of the Canadian work force and the concomitant increase in the prevalence of chronic diseases; the recent increase in presumptive compensation policies for occupational diseases (most notably cancer in specific occupational groups); and a widespread recognition of the shortcomings in our current approach, at both the provincial [...] In particular, the development of a new exposure registry in British Columbia and the development of a retrospective exposure and disease registry for asbestos miners in Newfoundland and Labrador (the Baie Verte Miners’ Registry) have drawn increased attention to the possibility of using registries to track occupational exposure and disease. [...] This review of exposure registries was undertaken in response to recent interest in the use of exposure registries as a tool for tracking occupational exposure in Canada and also because several of the authors recently participated in the development of the Baie Verte Miners’ Registry, a process which highlighted both strengths and weaknesses of a registry–based approach. [...] The ability of both the BVMR and the BAWR registries to provide meaningful information at the population level is limited by their voluntary nature and the lack of information on the population as a whole. [...] The ability of the CWHSP to provide population-level information is limited by the voluntary nature of the program, but the CWHSP does have the ability to identify case clusters, and this may trigger further epidemiological studies by NIOSH and the MSHA.