In April 2011 the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) announced Phase 2 of its occupational cancer research work, this time looking at ‘predicting the future burden of occupational cancer’. A methodology, produced by Sally Hutchings and Lesley Rushton of Imperial College London for HSE, noted: “In summary, a method is presented here to estimate the future burden of occupational cancer that facilitates testing of the effect of a range of potential interventions. The method is adaptable to situations where data, in particular exposure level data, are sparse; it is most robust in allowing comparison between intervention effects, and where a broad estimate of future burden across

exposures is required. However it can also be adapted to assess impacts of policy in specific industries, and can be adapted to use higher quality exposure data if available.”

Research Report 849 – Predicting the future burden of occupational cancer – methodology, HSE April 2011 [full report].