Occupational Health
Employment is a major determinant of health and healthy ageing
Working life exposures can lead to many diseases. It has been estimated that 1 in 4 of European citizens of working age suffer from a chronic health problem, which is the premier reason for workers to exit paid employment with large social and financial consequences. Unfortunately, little information is available on how work affects co-morbidity, the ability of workers with chronic disease to remain in paid employment, and the interplay between extended working careers, increasing longevity, and functional capacity.
Therefore, ensuring a safe and healthy work environment is important. Unfortunately, there is a major unutilized potential in exploring the association between working life or occupation and health. In Utrecht, research is focused on environmental and occupational risk factors for chronic diseases, including cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.
Research Projects
Lexces
The national expertise centre for substance-related occupational diseases pools knowledge and expertise in the area of hazardous substances and health risks for workers. In this way, we contribute to the prevention and assessment of occupational illnesses, with the aim of creating a future in which people no longer become ill from substances they are exposed to in the workplace.
Duration: ongoing
Project members UU: Susan Peters
EPHOR
In the EPHOR project researchers will lay the groundwork for evidence-based and cost-effective prevention for improving health at work, by developing a working life exposome toolbox. This consortium consists of 19 exposure, health, and data technology scientists and technology partners from 12 different countries. EPHOR is one of the nine projects of the European Human Exposome Network.
Duration: 2020 - 2025
Project members UU: Susan Peters, Roel Vermeulen
Funded by: European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
Academic workplace
The Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS) of Utrecht University and service provider Arbo Unie have started an academic workplace Risk analysis of Occupational Exposure.
Duration: 2021 - ongoing
Project members UU: Susan Peters
HERA
The overall aim of the HERA project is to set the priorities for an environment, climate and health research agenda in the EU.
Duration: 2019-2021
Project member: Roel Vermeulen & Anke Huss
Funded by: European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 825417.
OPERAS - automated job coding using artificial intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be applied to develop an expert system, which mimics human experts, for the process of coding occupational histories. The tool to be developed will improve the efficiency and feasibility of incorporating occupational risk factors into large-scale epidemiological studies substantially progressing the field of occupational health.
Duration: 2018-2022
Project members UU: Susan Peters, Roel Vermeulen, Egon van den Broek
Funded by: Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l’alimentation, de l’environnement et du travail (ANSES)
Synergy
The SYNERGY project is a pooled analysis of case-control studies on the joint effects of occupational carcinogens in the development of lung cancer.
Duration: 2007 - ongoing
Project members UU: Susan Peters, Hans Kromhout and Roel Vermeulen
IMA-DMP
In 2000 the European Industrial Minerals Association (IMA-Europe), representing the European producers of a considerable amount of minerals, recognized the vital need to monitor occupational respirable dust and quartz exposures and initiated a prospective Dust Monitoring Program (DMP). Since 2006, the resulting IMA-DMP database is hosted and analyzed by IRAS, in collaboration with The Netherlands Expertise Center for Occupational Respiratory Disorders (NECORD).
Duration: 2006 - ongoing
Project member UU: Hans Kromhout
Chromium-6
Historical exposure assessment for diverse workforces potentially exposed to chromium-6 in collaboration with Netherlands Expertise Centre for Occupational Respiratory Disorders (NECORD) and PreventPartner.
Duration: 2005 - 2022
Project member UU: Hans Kromhout
Platinum Salt Sensitization
Occupational exposure to soluble chlorinated platinum salts is a known cause of platinum salt sensitization and occupational asthma among precious metal refinery workers. In this 16-year retrospective study (2000-2015), we aim to obtain more evidence on the exposure-response relationship.
Duration: 2016-2022
Project member UU: Lidwien Smit
Funding: International Platinum Group Metals Association (IPA)
Cohort Studies
NEST-NL - Investigating the potential health effects of shift work
NEST-NL is a short follow-up study of the Nightingale Project, with the aim to further uncover the potential health effects of shift work amongst female nurses. Specific attention will be paid to the influence of exposure to light during the night and the subsequent possible biological disruption of the circadian rhythm. The results of this study will help develop interventional strategies that will minimize the health effects of shift work in the future.
Duration: 2023 - ongoing
Project Members UU: Susan Peters, Jelle Vlaanderen
Nightingale - Shift work and chronic disease
The Nightingale Study is a nationwide prospective cohort study on occupational exposures and risks of chronic diseases among female nurses and focuses on the potential association between shift work and risk of breast cancer. Results from the Nightingale Study will contribute to the scientific evidence of potential shift work-related health risks among nurses and will help develop preventive measures and policy aimed at reducing these risks.
Duration: 2011 - ongoing
Project members UU: Roel Vermeulen and Hans Kromhout
LIFEWORK - Investigating the health risks of multiple environmental and occupational exposures
The prospective LIFEWORK cohort was established to collect a large amount of high quality data on occupational and environmental exposures using a harmonized core questionnaire. The study focuses on the impact of physical, biological and chemical exposures in our daily living environment: at home and at work.
Duration: 2011 - ongoing
Project members UU: Roel Vermeulen and Hans Kromhout
COSMOS - Cohort Study of Mobile Phone Use and Health
COSMOS is a large prospective cohort study of mobile telephone users (ongoing recruitment of 250,000 men and women aged 18+ years in five European countries - Denmark, Finland, Sweden, The Netherlands, UK) who will be followed up for 25+ years. Information on mobile telephone use is collected prospectively through questionnaires and objective traffic data from network operators. Associations with disease risks will be studied.
Duration: ongoing
Project members UU: Roel Vermeulen and Hans Kromhout
OMEGA-NET
The overarching concept of OMEGA-NET is to create a network to optimize and integrate occupational, industrial, and population cohorts at the European level, and to provide a foundation for an enhanced evidence base for the identification of health risks and gains related to occupation and employment to foster safe and healthy preventive strategies and policies.
Duration: 2017-2021
Project members UU: Susan Peters, Roel Vermeulen,
Funded by: EU grant COST Action CA16216
AGRICOH
AGRICOH is an international consortium of agricultural cohort studies formed in October of 2010 to encourage and support data pooling to study disease-exposure associations that individual cohorts do not have sufficient statistical power to study. The consortium also includes three general population cohorts with large proportions of farmers.
Duration: 2010 - ongoing
Project members UU: Hans Kromhout
Asbest Chrysotile Cohort Study
A retrospective cohort study of cancer mortality in employees of a Russian chrysotile asbestos mine and mills.
Duration: 2009 - ongoing
Project members UU: Hans Kromhout
Funded by: The Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation in the framework of the Federal Target Program “National System of Chemical and Biological Safety of the Russian Federation”