Northern Life  Article

Speaker raises concern about occupational health research

By: Keith Lacey May 11, 2007

A leading expert told an occupational health conference the traditional study of determining the cause of disease in humans has grossly underestimated the effects of workplace illness and cancers.

There are serious limitations to traditional epidemiology, which have long suggested workplace-related exposures cause only four percent of cancers, said Dr. Pravesh Jugnundun, a consultant with the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers (OHCOW).
 
New Participatory Action Research (PAR), which involves a much closer look at individual cases strongly suggests that number is closer to 40 percent, said Jugnundun, a guest speaker at the Occupational Lung Diseases: Up Close conference, sponsored by the Sudbury OHCOW office Thursday at Cambrian College.

Jugnundun's presentation blasted the shortcomings of traditional epidemiological research and strongly suggested PAR studies provide a much clearer relationship between the causes of a myriad of illnesses, particularly work-related cancers.

He was one of numerous experts to speak on various occupational health diseases during the day-long conference. Other speakers made presentations on asbestos, occupational asthma, silica-related diseases and mesothelioma, a dangerous cancer caused by asbestos exposure.

Jugnundun said many researchers have become frustrated with traditional epidemiology because they don't believe it provides a clear picture of the true cause of occupational health disease.

"There's tremendous frustration among medical researchers about causation (of disease)... 'did this exposure cause this illness?'," said Jugnundun. "In my opinion (epidemiology) is not giving us enough answers."

PAR studies are much more accurate, in his opinion. Local workers drive the research, workers are involved in controlling the process, there's no hierarchy of power, local knowledge is used and developed and workers collect and analyze data using methods they understand, he said.

"It's not easier research, just different," he said.

PAR studies clearly indicate workplace exposure cause many more diseases to workers than have been accepted for decades and he believes this area of study will continue to gain acceptance, he said.