Assessing Activities Associated with Time Spent Outdoors in an Occupational Cohort of Radiologic Technologists

Abstract

Purpose To identify key daily activities in which persons working as radiologic technologists spend the majority of time outdoors. The findings will be used to design improved questionnaires to estimate retrospective UV exposure for future case-control studies of skin cancer and other malignancies to be undertaken within a large cohort of these medical radiation workers. Methods We evaluated the self-reported activities undertaken during time spent outdoors between 9 AM and 5 PM for 125 individuals (ages 40–59 and 60+ years old) who filled out a 7–day daily activity diary in September 2004. Daily UV measurements were also recorded for each individual. We initially classified activities into 37 groupings of similar activities before determining the 7 activities that accounted for the majority of time spent outdoors. We evaluated differences by age, gender, and geographic location of the individual in addition to whether these activities were carried out on a weekday or weekend day. Results Of a possible 13,953 daily diary entries, we ascertained that 4697 entries (totaling 1408 hours) were associated with time spent outdoors. The 7 major categories, which accounted for over 93% of the total time spent outdoors, included driving, yard work, home maintenance, walking or doing errands, recreational activities or sports, water activities, and leisure activities or relaxing outside. Differences in time spent outdoors were noted for age, gender, and weekend versus weekday. Conclusion The results of this analysis, in conjunction with UV measurements, will be useful in developing questionnaires that more accurately estimate UV exposure in relation to cancer risks in future case-control studies.