RATIONALE: Electric and magnetic fields may increase the risk of cancer. Developing interview questions that accurately estimate a person's exposure to electric and magnetic fields may help doctors learn about the long-term effects of workplace exposure.

PURPOSE: This clinical trial is developing interview questions that can be used in estimating workplace exposure to electric and magnetic fields.

OBJECTIVES:

• Validate an interview-based electric and magnetic field exposure (EMF) assessment algorithm against measurements of the time-weighted average magnetic field magnitude used in previous epidemiologic studies.
• Calibrate the parameters in the algorithm in order to improve the exposure estimates.
• Correlate EMF exposure estimates from the algorithm with biologically based metrics measured by new instrumentation.

OUTLINE: Participants respond to questions during a 5- to 15-minute telephone interview concerning workplace exposure to electric and magnetic (EMF) fields. Data is collected during the interview using an exposure assessment algorithm designed to estimate EMF workplace exposure based on participants' responses. The interview-based estimates are then validated against actual field measurements of magnetic field exposure captured by Emdex multiwave monitors located at participating sites.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Meets 1 of the following occupation criteria:

  • Three occupations that primarily work in offices at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (LLNL)
  • Three occupations that do nonelectric manual work (e.g., machinists and laborers) at LLNL

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

• Not specified

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

• Not specified