title: Estimation of occupational cosmic radiation exposure among airline personnel: Agreement between a job-exposure matrix, aggregate, and individual dose estimates.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Job-exposure matrices (JEM) are used for exposure assessment in occupational studies, but they can involve errors. We assessed agreement between the Nordic Occupational Cancer Studies JEM (NOCCA-JEM) and aggregate and individual dose estimates for cosmic radiation exposure among Finnish airline personnel.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cumulative cosmic radiation exposure for 5,022 airline crew members was compared between a JEM and aggregate and individual dose estimates.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The NOCCA-JEM underestimated individual doses. Intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.37, proportion of agreement 64%, kappa 0.46 compared with individual doses. Higher agreement was achieved with aggregate dose estimates, that is annual medians of individual doses and estimates adjusted for heliocentric potentials.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The substantial disagreement between NOCCA-JEM and individual dose estimates of cosmic radiation may lead to exposure misclassification and biased risk estimates in epidemiological studies. Using aggregate data may provide improved estimates. Am. J. Ind. Med. 60:386-393, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
authors.affiliation: School of Health Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.
authors.forename: Madar
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6548-358X
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Talibov
authors.affiliation: School of Health Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.
authors.forename: Raili
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Salmelin
authors.affiliation: School of Health Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.
authors.forename: Susanna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lehtinen-Jacks
authors.affiliation: School of Health Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.
authors.forename: Anssi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Auvinen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000401:Aircraft; D003359:Cosmic Radiation; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000032:analysis*; D000069079:Radiation Exposure / Q000032:analysis*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods*
keywords: agreement; cosmic radiation; exposure assessment; job-exposure matrix; misclassification