The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health keeps a regulatory ASA register of employees who have been exposed to carcinogenic substances and methods in their work.
Description
The ASA register contains information about exposure agents and work methods as well as exposed employees. The information is obtained from employers who perform exposure assessments and report exposed employees to the register retrospectively each year. This page contains the open dataset compiled from the ASA register data available for downloading as well as graphs showing the numbers of exposure to carcinogenic substances based on different variables.The ASA register is based on the Finnish Act on the list and registration of persons exposed to carcinogenic substances and methods at work (452/2020). The Act mandates that the employer keep a separate list of carcinogens and mutagens used and present at the workplace as well as of employees exposed to them.
It should be noted that the open data for 2010–2019 is based on previous regulation, and accordingly, persons exposed to substances listed in the decisions of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health were registered. Furthermore, the data does not include persons who have been registered as exposed to environmental tobacco smoke. The definition of substances to be registered in the ASA register changed in 2020 (new ASA Act 452/2020). Data meeting the requirements of the new Act will only be added to the register from 2020.
What do the indicators show?
The data consists of reports made to the ASA register in 2010–2019. It shows the annual numbers and proportional ratios (per 1,000 people at work) of employees registered as exposed in the different occupational safety and health districts. In addition, the distribution of employees by industry is shown for each occupational safety and health region.Exposure agent-specific data is linked to the occupational class (Occupational classification 2010, 4-digit level) and sector (Industrial classification 2008, main category level). The indicators also show the most common occupations, exposure agents and industries of those reported as having been exposed.
The numbers of people in employment were received from Statistics Finland. Since information may also be registered retrospectively, the register data is continuously updated. The data corresponds with the exposure data for 2010–2019 on 4 June 2021.
The Work-Life Knowledge service also offers an analysis article about the survey: The number of workers exposed to carcinogens has increased during years 2010–2019.
Acknowledgements
The publication of this webpage in the Work-life Knowledge Service has been partly funded by Cancer Foundation Finland. The work was also carried out partly in collaboration with The Finnish Cancer Registry.
