Firefighting and Crohn’s disease

WorkSafeBC Evidence-Based Practice Group, Martin CW
Record ID 32018014861
English
Authors' objectives: To determine whether there is any evidence on the (causal) association between working as a firefighter and the development or exacerbation of Crohn’s disease.
Authors' results and conclusions: One published study was identify from the literature searches. Examination of the title and abstract of this study revealed that this paper was not relevant to the objective of this systematic review. No studies were identified while searching on NIOSHTIC-2 database. Recent and comprehensive, expert and systematic review papers on Crohn’s disease outlined that cigarette smoking is a risk factor for Crohn’s disease and none of these recent review articles identified firefighting as a risk factor for the development or exacerbation of Crohn’s disease. At present, there is no study/data supporting the (causal) association between firefighting and development or aggravation of Crohn’s disease.
Authors' methods: A comprehensive and systematic literature search was conducted on January 16, 2025. The literature search was done on commercial and non-commercial medical and occupational health and safety related literature databases. A Combination of keywords were employed in these literature searches. We developed our keywording by consulting the US National Library of Medicine’s MeSH database. Same combination of keywords was employed while searching commercial medical literature databases available through Ovid platform as well as while searching on NIOSHTIC-2 database. No limitation, such as on the language and date of publication, was implemented in any of these searches. A manual search was also done on the references of the articles retrieved in full.
Details
Project Status: Completed
URL for project: https://www.worksafebc.com/en/about-us/research-services/evidence-based-medicine-and-systematic-reviews
Year Published: 2025
URL for published report: https://www.worksafebc.com/en/resources/health-care-providers/guides/firefighting-and-crohns-disease?lang=en&origin=s&returnurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.worksafebc.com%2Fen%2Fforms-resources%23sort%3DDate%26q%3DFirefighting%2520and%2520Crohn%25E2%2580%2599s%2520Disease%26f%3Alanguage-facet%3D%5BEnglish%5D%26tags%3DGuide%7C2d7eb4b30f6a4a319e0d40565c9abbab%2CHealth%2520Care%2520Provider%7C13468b0b3f074f6bade3f57ac3cdfb8e%2CSystematic%2520Review%7Cf78c29d570c14ec3b5a394385905df70&highlight=Firefighting%20and%20Crohn%E2%80%99s%20Disease
English language abstract: An English language summary is available
Publication Type: Mini HTA
Country: Canada
MeSH Terms
  • Crohn Disease
  • Firefighters
  • Occupational Exposure
  • Occupational Diseases
  • Inflammatory Bowel Diseases
Keywords
  • firefighter
  • fireman
  • crohn’s disease
  • inflammatory bowel syndrome
Contact
Organisation Name: WorkSafeBC
Contact Address: 6591 Westminster Highway, Richmond, BC, V7C 1C6 Canada. Tel: 604-231-8417; Fax: 604-279-7698
Contact Name: ebpg@worksafebc.com
Contact Email: ebpg@worksafebc.com
Copyright: WorkSafe BC
This is a bibliographic record of a published health technology assessment from a member of INAHTA or other HTA producer. No evaluation of the quality of this assessment has been made for the HTA database.