204 - The NIOSH National Firefighter Registry for Cancer- What Occupational Medicine Physicians Need to Know

Session Description: Due to the risk of exposures to known and possible carcinogens during their work, Congress passed the Firefighter Cancer Registry Act of 2018 to create a registry to evaluate cancer risk in U.S. firefighters. In 2019, NIOSH launched the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer (NFR) to address the paucity of data regarding firefighters’ work and exposures and to track cancer diagnoses over time. Since NFR enrollment began in April 2023, >30,000 firefighters have enrolled. The NFR’s goal is to enroll as many firefighters with and without cancer as possible and follow their health prospectively with periodic linkages to all 50 state cancer registries. Occupational medicine physicians can encourage their firefighter patients to enroll in the NFR to better guide the evaluation of firefighting-related exposures, other risk factors, and the development of cancer to provide improved risk reduction strategies. This session will explain the mechanics of the NFR, provide responses to FAQs, and show the enrollment process.

Educational Gaps: Occupational medicine physicians may not be aware of the NFR or understand the importance of enrolling various subgroups of firefighters (e.g., paid/career and volunteer, etc.) to ensure they are represented in the data collection and evaluation of cancer risk. This session will provide this information to clinicians, so they are comfortable recommending NFR enrollment to all their firefighter patients.

Is this session being sponsored by an ACOEM Section or Component?: no

Has this session previously been presented?: no

The AOHC 2026 theme is Healthy workers. Healthy world: The hierarchy of controls places elimination of the exposure as the most effective approach to remove a hazard but that can only happen once the hazard is identified. The goal of the NFR is to provide data that will guide scientific research to identify carcinogens that firefighters may encounter. Once a carcinogen is identified, it may lead to protection of workers in other industries exposed to that carcinogen. The NFR's work will help promote a healthier world by identifying new carcinogens so that exposure to them can be eliminated thereby reducing the overall cancer burden in the general population; not just firefighters.