About the project
The EpiStat group at the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Oslo (UiO) has since 2018, collaborated with the Cancer Registry of Norway on several studies of cancer incidence among Norwegian offshore workers. The studies have been based on the Cancer Registry of Norway’s offshore cohort from 1998, the Norwegian Offshore Petroleum Worker cohort (NOPW), which contains occupational histories and lifestyle factors of approximately 28,000 workers employed between 1965 and 1998. However, we know little about the incidence of cancer and other chronic diseases in workers who have worked offshore after 1998. Therefore, we now collaborates with the Cancer Registry of Norway on the establishment of a new cohort of offshore workers who have worked offshore after year 2000. This cohort is based on flight registry data of helicopter transport to and from the platforms, and is therefore called the Heliport cohort.
The NOPW cohort from 1998 and the new Heliport cohort will be merged for this project, and will then, as a combined offshore cohort, be linked to a number of health registers for studies of disease, injury and mortality among offshore workers.
Objectives
The overall aim is to conduct studies of mortality, morbidity and injury according to occupational exposures and lifestyle factors. The three work packages (WPs) are:
WP 1) To use newly collected data on benzene and oil mist/vapor in the petroleum industry by collaborators at the University of Bergen (UiB) to develop updated JEM’s for the period 2000-2020.
WP 2) Conduct a questionnaire survey in the Heliport-cohort, harmonize the NOPW and Heliport-cohort and linking the cohorts to other health registries.
WP 3) Studies on mortality, morbidity and injuries after occupational exposure and lifestyle risk factors.
Funding
Research Council of Norway, Norwegian Cancer Society.
Collaborators
- Cancer Registry of Norway
- University of Bergen
- The National Institute of Occupational Health in Norway (STAMI)
- Norwegian Trauma Registry
- Oslo University Hospital
- National Cancer Institute (MD, USA)
- Albert Einstein College of Medicine (NY, USA)
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (NC, USA)
- Utrecht University (Netherlands)
- Occupational Cancer Research Center (Toronto, Canada).
Reference user group
The users are represented through the project’s reference group, which is based on the Norwegian tradition of involving parties from the unions, the industry and the regulatory authorities. The reference group consists of representatives from the industry (Federation of Norwegian Industries, Norwegian Shipowners’ Association, Equinor), the unions (SAFE and LO), and the regulatory authority (Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority).