The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) has conducted a large worker survey, the Workers’ Exposure Survey on cancer risk factors in Europe (WES), in six EU Member States: Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, Hungary and Finland. This survey is the first of its kind in Europe, and it provides information on probable exposure of workers during the last working week to several known cancer risk factors, both chemical and physical. Detailed information on the specific circumstances of exposure across jobs and the preventive and protective measures applied at work (including personal protective equipment) was also collected. A selection of demographic data supports the identification of exposed worker groups. The main goal of WES is to provide reliable and informative data on workers’ exposure that is complementary to the existing data sources in the EU, such as workplace measurements or job-exposure matrices. WES results will provide additional valuable data in the context of future amendment proposals to the carcinogens, mutagens or reprotoxic substances at work directive (CMRD)1 and thereby contribute to the fight against work-related cancer. Updated information on occupational exposures to selected cancer risk factors, comparable across countries, will also support one of the key objectives of the EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work 2021-2027 on improving the prevention of work-related diseases, in particular cancer, and will contribute to Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and the EU Roadmap on Carcinogens initiatives. WES is a cross-sectional survey providing a picture of the probability of workers’ exposure to selected cancer risk factors at a given time point, and it should not be used to establish causal relations with current cancer outcomes. WES data should contribute to increasing awareness of cancer risks at the workplace and to a better understanding of where these exposures may occur, enhancing prevention and risk management across the EU. EU-OSHA has coordinated the overall development and implementation of WES, finalised in 2023. This report provides more information on the methodology used to implement WES, expanding on the publication ‘Occupational cancer risk factors in Europe – summary of the methodology of the Workers’ Exposure Survey’.
Authors
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, EU body or agency, Vilahur, Nadia
- Catalogue number
- TE-09-24-314-EN-N
- Citation
- European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, Vilahur, N., Occupational cancer risk factors in Europe â Methodology of the workersâ exposure survey , Publications Office of the European Union, 2024, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2802/71781
- DOI
- https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2802/71781
- ISBN
- 978-92-9402-329-2
- Pages
- 34
- Published in
- Belgium
- Themes
- Workers' health and safety
Table of Contents
- 1 Introduction 5
- 2 Adaptation of the survey and tool to the European context 6
- 2.1 Background to WES 6
- 2.1.1 The AWES 6
- 2.1.2 Exposure assessment principle based on OccIDEAS 6
- 2.2 The WES questionnaire adaptation 8
- 2.2.1 Cancer risk factors included in WES 9
- 2.2.2 Work organisation of the national teams 10
- 2.2.3 Main changes to the survey 15
- Changes in questions and rules 15
- Creation of new job and task modules 16
- Preventive/protective measures 17
- 2.2.4 Development of a glossary of technical terms 18
- 3 Preparation and implementation of the survey 19
- 3.1 Preparing the survey master questionnaire 19
- 3.2 Translation to national languages 20
- 3.3 Piloting WES 21
- 3.4 Survey implementation 24
- 3.4.1 Sampling procedures 24
- Target population and sample sizes 24
- Sampling frames and coverage 24
- Generation of RDD samples 25
- Approach to oversampling: estimation of job module prevalence and exposure risk 26
- 3.4.2 Fieldwork 26
- Interviewer teams and training 26
- Quality control of interviews 28
- Execution of the survey fieldwork 28
- 3.5 Data processing 30
- 3.5.1 Data quality 30
- 3.5.2 Data coding 31
- 3.5.3 Data weighting 32
- Design weights 32
- Calibration weights 32
