Lifetime Employment Trajectories and Cancer: A Population-Based Cohort Study

TL;DR

This study explores how lifetime employment patterns are linked to cancer risk in older adults.

Contribution

The study introduces the use of sequence analysis to examine lifetime employment trajectories and their association with cancer risk.

Findings

Women with certain employment trajectories had higher cancer risk compared to those mainly in home/family roles.

Men who were mainly self-employed had lower cancer risk compared to those mainly in full-time work.

Sequence analysis proved useful in identifying distinct employment patterns linked to cancer risk.

Abstract

Working life is associated with lifestyle, screening uptake, and occupational health risks that may explain differences in cancer onset. To better understand the association between working life and cancer risk, we need to account for the entire employment history. We investigated whether lifetime employment trajectories are associated with cancer risk. We used data from 6,809 women and 5,716 men, average age 70 years, from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe. Employment history from age 16 to 65 was collected retrospectively using a life calendar and trajectories were constructed using sequence analysis. Associations between employment trajectories and self-reported cancer were assessed using logistic regression. We identified eight employment trajectories for women and two for men. Among women, the risk of cancer was higher in the trajectories “Mainly full-time to home/family”, “Full-time or home/family to part-time”, “Mainly full-time”, and “Other” compared with the “Mainly home/family” trajectory. Among men, the risk of cancer was lower in the “Mainly self-employment” trajectory compared with “Mainly full-time”. We could show how employment trajectories were associated with cancer risk, underlining the potential of sequence analysis for life course epidemiology. More research is needed to understand these associations and determine if causal relationships exist.

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