ArticleBMC cancer2014
The Nightingale study: rationale, study design and baseline characteristics of a prospective cohort study on shift work and breast cancer risk among nurses.
Article in BMC cancer, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Shift work, headache, and migraine in a large cohort of Dutch nurses.Annals of work exposures and health · 2026Article
- Article
- Night Shift Work and Risk of Melanoma: A Prospective Cohort Study among 59,384 Female Nurses in the Netherlands.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2025Article
- Chronotype in relation to shift work: A cohort study among 37,731 female nurses.Journal of sleep research · 2025Article
- Night shift work and breast cancer risk - 2023 update of epidemiologic evidence.Journal of the National Cancer Center · 2025Review
- Detailed assessment of night shift work aspects and potential mediators of its health effects: the contribution of field studies.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Associations of night shift work with weight gain among female nurses in The Netherlands: results of a prospective cohort study.Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health · 2024Article
- Associating night-shift work with lifetime use of sleep medication and sleep quality in a cohort of female nurses.Annals of work exposures and health · 2023Article
- Shift Work and Metabolic Syndrome Updates: A Systematic Review.Sleep science (Sao Paulo, Brazil) · 2023Review
- Applying the exposome concept to working life health: The EU EPHOR project.Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2022Article
- Methodological considerations in establishing and maintaining longitudinal health workforce studies: Lessons learned from the WiSDOM cohort in South Africa.Global health action · 2021Article
- High HOMA-IR Index in Healthcare Shift Workers.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2019Article
- Cohort profile: LIFEWORK, a prospective cohort study on occupational and environmental risk factors and health in the Netherlands.BMJ open · 2018Article
- Health consequences of electric lighting practices in the modern world: A report on the National Toxicology Program's workshop on shift work at night, artificial light at night, and circadian disruption.The Science of the total environment · 2017Review
- Breast cancer epidemic in the early twenty-first century: evaluation of risk factors, cumulative questionnaires and recommendations for preventive measures.Tumour biology : the journal of the International Society for Oncodevelopmental Biology and Medicine · 2016Review
- Klokwerk + study protocol: An observational study to the effects of night-shift work on body weight and infection susceptibility and the mechanisms underlying these health effects.BMC public health · 2016Observational
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundEvidence for the carcinogenicity of shift work in humans is limited because of significant heterogeneity of the results, thus more in-depth research in needed. The Nightingale Study is a nationwide prospective cohort study on occupational exposures and risks of chronic diseases among female nurses and focuses on the potential association between shift work and risk of breast cancer. The study design, methods, and baseline characteristics of the cohort are described. METHODS/
designThe source population for the cohort comprised 18 to 65 year old women who were registered as having completed training to be a nurse in the nationwide register for healthcare professionals in the Netherlands. Eligible women were invited to complete a web-based questionnaire including full job history, a detailed section on all domains of shift work (shift system, cumulative exposure, and shift intensity) and potential confounding factors, and an informed consent form for linkage with national (disease) registries. Women were also asked to donate toenail clippings as a source of DNA for genetic analyses. Between October 6, 2011 and February 1, 2012, 31% of the 192,931 women who were invited to participate completed the questionnaire, yielding a sample size of 59,947 cohort members. The mean age of the participants was 46.9 year (standard deviation 11.0 years). Toenail clippings were provided by 23,439 participants (39%). DISCUSSION: Results from the Nightingale Study will contribute to the scientific evidence of potential shift work-related health risks among nurses and will help develop preventive measures and policy aimed at reducing these risks.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.