Background: Work circumstances can substantially negatively impact health. To explore this, large occupational cohorts of free-text job descriptions are manually coded and linked to exposure. Although several automatic coding tools have been developed, accurate exposure assessment is only feasible with human intervention.
Methods: We developed OPERAS, a customizable decision support system for epidemiological job coding. Using 812,522 entries, we developed and tested classification models for the Professions et Catégories Socioprofessionnelles (PCS)2003, Nomenclature d'Activités Française (NAF)2008, International Standard Classifications of Occupation (ISCO)-88, and ISCO-68. Each code comes with an estimated correctness measure to identify instances potentially requiring expert review. Here, OPERAS' decision support enables an increase in efficiency and accuracy of the coding process through code suggestions. Using the Formaldehyde, Silica, ALOHA, and DOM job-exposure matrices, we assessed the classification models' exposure assessment accuracy.
Results: We show that, using expert-coded job descriptions as gold standard, OPERAS realized a 0.66-0.84, 0.62-0.81, 0.60-0.79, and 0.57-0.78 inter-coder reliability (in Cohen's Kappa) on the first, second, third, and fourth coding levels, respectively. These exceed the respective inter-coder reliability of expert coders ranging 0.59-0.76, 0.56-0.71, 0.46-0.63, 0.40-0.56 on the same levels, enabling a 75.0-98.4% exposure assessment accuracy and an estimated 19.7-55.7% minimum workload reduction.
Conclusions: OPERAS secures a high degree of accuracy in occupational classification and exposure assessment of free-text job descriptions, substantially reducing workload. As such, OPERAS significantly outperforms both expert coders and other current coding tools. This enables large-scale, efficient, and effective exposure assessment securing healthy work conditions.
Work can expose us to health risks, such as asbestos and constant noise. To study these risks, job descriptions are collected and classified by experts to standard codes. This is time-consuming, expensive, and requires expert knowledge. To improve this coding, we created computer code based on Artificial Intelligence that can both automate this process and suggest codes to experts, who can then check and change it manually if needed. Our system outperforms both expert coders and other available tools. This system could make studying occupational health risks more efficient and accurate, resulting in safer work environments.
© 2023. The Author(s).