Table 1.

Descriptive characteristics of firefighters and police officers in the ODSS cohort, 1983–2020

	CCDO 6111 Firefighters	CCDO 6112 Police officers	ODSS cohort
				Total, n	13 642	22 595	2 368 226
Major industry group, n
Federal	259	333	34 596
Provincial	841	6263	46 531
Municipal	11 376	17 383	118 008
Male, %	96	83	65
Year of birth, median (IQR)	1958 (1949–1968)	1964 (1953–1973)	1960 (1950–1970)
Years of follow-up, median (IQR)	21 (11–30)	20 (10–30)	23 (12–31)
Age at start of follow-up, median (IQR), years	38 (32–45)	34 (29–42)	34 (25–45)
Age at end of follow-up, median (IQR), years	59 (50–68)	55 (46–65)	58 (49–68)

CCDO, Canadian Classification Dictionary of Occupation; IQR, Interquartile Range; n, number of workers; ODSS, Occupational Disease Surveillance System.