Risk of major chronic diseases in transport, rescue and security industries: a longitudinal register-based study.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the risk of hospitalisation for major chronic diseases across representative transport, rescue and security industries. METHODS: We performed a register-based study of 624 571 workers from six industries in Denmark between 2000 and 2005, followed up hospitalisation for chronic diseases up to 17 years, and compared with a 20% random sample of the economically active population. RESULTS: HR from the Cox regression models showed that seafarers had higher risk of lung cancer (men 1.54, 95% CI 1.31 to 1.81; women 1.63, 95% CI 1.13 to 2.36), and male seafarers had higher risk of diabetes (1.32, 95% CI 1.21 to 1.43) and oral cancer (1.51, 95% CI 1.21 to 1.88). Men and women in land transport had increased risk of diabetes (men 1.68, 95% CI 1.63 to 1.73; women 1.55, 95% CI 1.40 to 1.71) and chronic respiratory disease (men 1.21, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.25; women 1.42, 95% CI 1.32 to 1.53). Among women, a higher risk of gastrointestinal cancer was observed in aviation (1.53, 95% CI 1.23 to 1.89) and police force (1.29, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.65), oral cancer in defence forces (1.83, 95% CI 1.20 to 2.79), and chronic respiratory disease in rescue service (1.47, 95% CI 1.21 to 1.77), while men in defence forces, police force and rescue service had mainly lower risk of these chronic diseases. CONCLUSIONS: We observed considerable health disparities from chronic diseases across transport, rescue and security industries, with workers in seafaring and land transport generally bearing the greatest relative burden.