Table 3.

Reliability of JEMs in estimating past occupational exposures in case–control studies in the population.

Authors, year	Exposure	Assessment method	Comparison method	Reliability test	Results
Daniels et al., 2001	Pesticides	Occupation- industry JEM developed by authors	Referent case-by-case expert assessment	κ for presence of exposure; sensitivity and specificity	κ = 0.4–0.6; sensitivity = 57.1–71.4%; specificity = 97.7–99.1%
Parks et al., 2004	Silica	JEM developed by authors	Case-by-case expert assessment based on questionnaire data plus follow-up telephone interview data	Sensitivity and specificity	Sensitivity = 0.44 for long-term exposures (>12 months) and 0.32 for shorter-term exposures (>2 weeks); specificity = 0.97 for all exposures
Semple et al., 2004	Solvents, pesticides, and metals	JEM created by authors, plus exposure modifiers based on questionnaire responses	Case-by-case assessment by experts	Spearman’s ρ for cumulative exposure	Spearman’s ρ = 0.89 for a validation sample of 30 jobs
Nam et al., 2005	Asbestos	Assessment by population JEM (Sieber et al., 1991)	Case-by-case assessment by an occupational hygienist	κ for presence of exposure; odds ratio for cancer	κ = 0.24 for cases and 0.34 for controls. Odds ratios for mesothelioma was 2.1 (95% CI 1.5–2.9) based JEM-assessed exposure and 4.7 (95% CI 3.2– 6.8) based on expert-assessed exposure
Orsi et al., 2010	Solvents	Matgéné JEM (Févotte et al., 2011)	Case-by-case assessment by a chemical engineer	Percent agreement and κ for presence of exposure	Percent agreement = 73–87 (median 82); κ = 0.46– 0.54 (median 0.50)
Peters et al., 2011a	Diesel engine exhaust, crystalline silica, asbestos	Assessment by population- specific JEM developed by authors; population-based DOM JEM	Case-by-case assessment performed by experts in eight research centres	κ for presence of exposure between all methods	κ between population- specific JEM and expert assessment = 0.28–0.91 (median = 0.63); κ between DOM JEM and expert assessment = 0.04–0.54 (median = 0.38); κ between two JEMs = 0.07–0.73 (median = 0.34)
Offermans et al., 2012	Asbestos, PAHs, welding fumes	Dutch Asbestos JEM, DOM JEM, FINJEM	Case-by-case expert assessment by consensus by two experts	Weighted κ on tertiles of cumulative exposure	κ = 0.29 for asbestos and 0.42 for PAHs for DOM JEM; κ = 0.70 for welding fume for FINJEM; κ = 0.10 for asbestos for asbestos JEM.
Lavoué et al., 2012	27 agents	FINJEM- assessed exposure prevalence and intensity	Exposure likelihood, frequency, and intensity assessed by Montreal JEM, developed by authors	Weighted κ for exposure prevalence; Spearman correlation for exposure intensity	Weighted κ = 0.07–0.89; Spearman correlation = −0.35 to 0.89

CI = confidence interval; DOM JEM = Domtoren job-exposure matrix; FINJEM = Finnish Information System on Occupational Exposure.