Work Coding Beyond SIC and SOC, BOC and DOT

Traditional coding schemes for occupational health related factors eg, SIC, SOC, CAS are structured similarly as hierarchical, exclusive, and exhaustive systems. Each is limited to information of one particular type eg, industry and, therefore, the relationships implicit in the coding scheme are limited. This study empirically determined that “natural” coding schemes used by occupational health professionals do not share these characteristics but are more akin to semantic network data bases. There is therefore a need to reevaluate how occupational data are to be coded.