Table 1.
Description of study population
| Attribute | Combined population |
AGRICAN |
CNAP |
AHS |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| n | % | n | % | n | % | n | % | |
| Males | 237 317 | 75% | 71 358 | 56% | 116 128 | 84% | 49 831 | 97% |
| Females | 78 953 | 25% | 55 924 | 44% | 21 693 | 16% | 1336 | 3% |
| Both sexes | 316 270 | 100% | 127 282 | 100% | 137 821 | 100% | 51 167 | 100% |
| Year of birth (range) | 1900–1985 | 1900–1985 | 1925–1971 | 1901–1983 | ||||
| Follow-up period | 1993–2011 | 2005–2009 | 1993–2011 | 1993–2011 | ||||
| Median age at start of cancer follow-up | 55 | 67 | 51 | 46 | ||||
| Median duration of cancer follow-up (years) | 16 | 4 | 19 | 16 | ||||
| Person-years of follow-up | 3 574 815 | 426 340 | 2 396 595 | 751 880 | ||||
| Median age at diagnosis | 69 | 76 | 68 | 67 | ||||
| Participants classified as pesticide applicators or users, based on self-report of pesticide application, performance of pesticide treatment tasks, purchase of pesticides and/or owning spraying equipment | 224 060 | 71% | 86 509 | 68% | 87 009 | 63% | 50 542 | 99% |
| Prevalence of reported or estimated ever use of at least one of the evaluated chemical groups or active chemical ingredients in the meta-analysis | 198 492 | 63% | 80 898 | 67% | 62 047 | 45% | 50 542 | 99% |
| Participants who cultivated selected cropsa | ||||||||
| Hay, meadows, grasslands | 142 886 | 45% | 89 168 | 70% | 34 656 | 25% | 19 062 | 37% |
| Grains | 123 643 | 39% | 73 774 | 58% | 34 838 | 25% | 15 031 | 29% |
| Corn | 92 861 | 29% | 54 815 | 43% | n.s. | 38 046 | 74% | |
| Fruit orchards | 58 847 | 19% | 49 743 | 39% | 7683 | 6% | 1421 | 3% |
| Potatoes | 97 705 | 31% | 52 025 | 41% | 43 458 | 32% | 2222 | 4% |
| Vineyards | 57 815 | 18% | 57 160 | 45% | n.s. | 655 | 1% | |
| Tobacco | 26 203 | 8% | 17 730 | 14% | n.s. | 8473 | 17% | |
| Greenhouses | 23 719 | 7% | n.s. | 23 719 | 17% | |||
| Soybeansb | n.s. | n.s. | 36 281 | 71% | ||||
| Mean number of selected crops cultivated | 2 | 3.1 | 1.6 | 1.1 | ||||
| Ever producing any animal species | 242 695 | 77% | 107 505 | 84% | 102 578 | 74% | 32 612 | 64% |
| Lymphoid malignancies diagnosed during follow-upc | ||||||||
| Non-Hodgkin lymphoid malignancies (NHL) | 2430 | 100% | 439 | 100% | 1498 | 100% | 493 | 100% |
| Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL) | 497 | 20.4% | 94 | 21.4% | 280 | 18.7% | 123 | 24.9% |
| Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) | 434 | 17.8% | 75 | 17.1% | 246 | 16.4% | 113 | 22.9% |
| Follicular lymphoma (FL) | 214 | 8.8% | 34 | 7.7% | 116 | 7.7% | 64 | 13.0% |
| Multiple myeloma/plasma-cell leukaemia (MM) | 561 | 23.5% | 103 | 23.5% | 362 | 24.2% | 96 | 19.5% |
n.s., crop not selected for study in the respective country.
aIn AGRICAN, counts are based on ever cultivating the crop, and these are the average of five imputation datasets, calculated using Rubin’s rule for combining multiple imputed data. Corn includes corn produced for grain or silage, grains include wheat or barley and orchard crops include apples. In CNAP, counts are based on reports of ever producing the crop in any of the agricultural and horticultural censuses (1969–89). In this cohort, no information is available on grasslands, hay or meadows, and the counts reported correspond to silage, used as proxy for grasslands. Grains include wheat, barley, oats, rye and oil seeds, orchard crops include apples, pears and plums, and greenhouses include all crops cultivated in greenhouses. In AHS, counts are based on reports of ever producing the crop at phase I or phase II. Grasslands and meadows include hay and alfalfa, corn includes field and seed corn, and grains include wheat, barley, oats and rye. Vineyards refer to grape cultivation, and orchard crops include apples and peaches. No information on crops cultivated in greenhouses was available.
bThis crop was not included in the French or Norwegian crop-exposure matrices. Nevertheless, it is included here to give a more complete description of the crops cultivated in the AHS cohort.
cFull distribution of lymphoid malignancies is given in Supplementary Table 2, available as Supplementary data at IJE online. Percentages of subtypes shown are derived from NHL cases.