Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Why is the eligible age range between 22 and 55 years old?
- Why are you only including men working in health care facilities?
- Why is there a range of $150-$200 for the compensation?
- What will be done with my blood samples?
- What if I don't want to give a blood sample?
- Why can't I be taking steroids, hormones or any type of recreational drug?
Q. Why is the eligible age range between 22 and 55 years old?
Hormone levels are generally less stable in men younger than 22 or older than 55. Therefore, we established the age range for eligibility to be between 22 and 55, which is a period when the hormones are more stable.
Q. Why are you only including men working in health care facilities?
The primary reason we chose to include only health care workers in our study is that we think it is important to study a group of individuals who potentially share other common exposures and experiences. This will increase the likelihood of finding biological effects due to night shift work alone, and not due to some other factor that might differ between, say, health care workers and those working in a different setting . A second reason we are focusing on health care workers is that our study protocol includes collecting blood and urine samples, as well as repeated oral temperature measurement, throughout the study. We think that health care workers may feel more comfortable in providing these samples and in having them collected than night shift workers in other occupations. A third reason is that the Seattle metropolitan area has a large number of hospitals and other health care settings, making it easier and more convenient for us to draw our entire study population from this particular group of night shift workers.
Q. Why is there a range of $150-$200 for the compensation?
Day shift workers will be paid $150 for completing the study and night shift workers will be paid $200. The additional compensation is given to night shift workers because they are asked to complete additional tasks during participation - to take periodic body temperature measurements and to collect an additional blood and urine sample.
Q. What will be done with my blood and urine sample?
Your blood and urine sample will be processed and stored in freezers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and later sent to the laboratories for analyses of male reproductive hormones, stress hormones, and identification of genes that may be important in the regulation of sleep/wake cycle rhythms.
Q. What if I don’t want to give a blood or urine sample?
Providing all scheduled blood and urine samples is essential for participation in the study. There are three blood collections and four urine collections for night shift workers and two blood collections and three urine collections for day shift workers. The Interviewers are experienced, certified, phlebotomists and will make the blood draws as quick and easy as possible.
Q. Why can't I be taking steroids, hormones or any type of recreational drug?
Recent use of drugs such as marijuana and cocaine may affect the hormones we are measuring in the blood and urine samples. This could potentially result in erroneous or inaccurate conclusions from the data. Therefore, it is very important that anyone enrolled in the study has not used illicit or recreational drugs in the 30-90 days prior to participation.
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