Researchers used a Job Exposure Matrix (JEM) to estimate which jobs involve exposure to endocrine disrupters. They found: “Exposure to any chemical group was unlikely for 238 job titles (67 per cent), whereas 102 (29 per cent) job titles were classified as possibly (17 per cent) or probably (12 per cent) exposed to one or several endocrine disruptors. The remaining 13 job titles provided too little information to classify exposure.” The PAHs, pesticides, phthalates, organic solvents, alkylphenolic compounds and metals were often linked to a job title in the JEM. The remaining chemical groups were found to involve very few occupations. The paper notes: “In order to select potential endocrine disruptors for inclusion in the JEM, information was obtained from the report, chemicals purported to be endocrine disruptors by the Institute for Environment and Health in the UK, the website www.ourstolenfuture.org by Colborn et al and the World Health Organization report ‘Global assessment of the state-of-the-science of endocrine disruptors’. Additional information was identified from research articles for which in some cases secondary literature sources were used.”

MM Brouwers, M van Tongeren, AA Hirst and others. Occupational exposure to potential endocdrine disruptors: further development of a job exposure matrix, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, volume 66, pages 607-614, 2009.