OccIDEAS: web-based assessment of occupational agent exposure

Abstract

Most epidemiological studies of disease aetiology do not consider potential risk factors at work. This may be because work is a complex exposure: people usually have a series of different jobs over their working lifetime; within each job there may be a range of different tasks; and there may be a variety of exposures in each job. Because of this complexity, many epidemiologists do not have the expertise or training to assess occupational exposures accurately. Our web-based application, OccIDEAS, manages the process of occupational agent assessment in epidemiological studies. The epidemiologist chooses the agents of interest for the study and OccIDEAS provides an online set of questionnaires that are tailored to those agents. The participant is asked specific questions about their job and evidence-based algorithms provide an assessment of exposure to each agent. OccIDEAS puts the world's best occupational epidemiological expertise within reach of any researcher.

Keywords: Occupational exposure; questionnaire; software.