Race, occupation, and lung cancer: detecting disparities with death certificate data.
OBJECTIVE
To determine whether the analysis of death certificate data would reveal the same relationship among race, occupational exposure, and lung cancer mortality observed by a large cohort study.


METHODS
An occupation-specific mortality odds ratio (MOR) for lung cancer (ICD-162) versus all other causes was calculated for 218,341 black men and white men who had been employed in the metal industries.


RESULTS
Black men were at increased risk for lung cancer mortality when compared with white men among the 4668 oven workers (MOR = 1.38, 95% CI = 1.10 to 1.73), but not among the 33,605 white-collar workers (MOR = 0.95, 95% CI = 0.74 to 1.23).


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings corroborate a previously demonstrated association among exposure to carcinogenic coke oven emissions, race, and lung cancer mortality, and support the use of death certificate data to help identify occupations with racial disparities in lung cancer mortality.
Birdsey
Jan
J
Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Cincinnati, OH 45226, USA.
Alterman
Toni
T
Petersen
Martin R
MR
D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D015331:Cohort Studies; D015986:Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic; D003644:Death Certificates; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000401:mortality; D008297:Male; D008669:Metallurgy; D008875:Middle Aged; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000401:mortality; D016273:Occupational Exposure; D016017:Odds Ratio; D012907:Smoking; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D044465:White People