Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health最新文献

Objectives: In Sweden, the number of working-aged women in employment is now almost equal to that of men. While this has many benefits, it presents challenges in organizing work and non-work responsibilities around children, which may impact employees` mental health.

Methods: Based on the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH) cohort study, we prospectively examined gender differences for the effects of work-family conflict and caring for children on mental health among Swedish workers. Mental health status was assessed using a brief (Hopkins) symptom checklist depression scale. We used information from three waves of data over five years (2014-2018) for 5846 women and 4219 men aged 20-64 at baseline. Linear fixed-effects analyses were performed examining within-person changes in work interfering with family (WFC) and family interfering with work (FWC) and associated changes in depressive symptoms by childcare intensity (0, 1-10, >10 hours/week) and sex.

Results: Changes in mean scores for WFC and FWC were associated with changes in depressive symptoms for men [no childcaring: WFC 1.31 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.13-1.49), FWC 0.70 (95% CI 0.43-0.96); childcaring >10 hours/week: WFC 1.39 (95% CI 0.53-2.25), FWC 1.24 (95% CI 0.27-2.21)] and women [no childcaring: WFC 1.57 (95% CI 1.41-1.73), FWC 1.04 (95% CI 0.79-1.30); childcaring >10 hours/week: WFC 2.04 (95% CI 1.36-2.73), FWC 1.57 (95% CI 0.82-2.32)].

Conclusion: Higher levels of WFC and FWC are associated with increased depressive symptoms in both men and women. The impact is greater for those with greater childcaring responsibilities intensity.

Objectives: Previous studies mapping pleural mesothelioma in Denmark have found that the risk varies between Danish regions. However, evaluating disease risk for such relatively large geographical units ignores any heterogeneity within the unit and can thus diminish more local spikes in risk, missing smaller areas of excess risk. In this study, we examined the distribution of pleural mesothelioma in Denmark on an unprecedented detailed scale, mapping cases to each of the Danish parishes.

Methods: We identified individuals diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma between 1990 and 2021 in the Danish Cancer Registry. Considering age- and sex-standardized incidence rate ratios (IRR), we used a conditional autoregressive random effects model to smooth IRR across parishes. Parishes with a smoothed parish-to-national IRR >1.25 or >2.0 with a posterior probability of >95% were flagged as parishes with an excess risk of pleural mesothelioma.

Results: We identified 3105 incident cases of pleural mesothelioma in the study period. A total of 74 and 14 parishes were flagged with IRR significantly above 1.25 and 2.0, respectively. These parishes had posterior mean smoothed IRR of 1.82-4.13.

Conclusions: We provided a detailed mapping of pleural mesothelioma cases in Denmark and found five distinct areas, each covering several parishes, with a significantly elevated risk. All these areas were in the proximity of previous asbestos-using industries.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate productivity loss during the COVID-19 pandemic and identify risk factors by examining indicators of work productivity loss in a population-based cohort in The Netherlands.

Methods: Longitudinal data from the Lifelines COVID-19 cohort were used, enriched with registry data from Statistics Netherlands. Data of N=11 462 workers were collected from 2020-2022. Productivity loss was measured using four indicators: unemployment, sickness absence rate, loss of work hours, and loss of work quality. Generalized estimating equations were used to examine the association between socioeconomic, health-, and work-related characteristics and the four indicators.

Results: Unemployment remained low (<0.5%) throughout the pandemic. In contrast, prevalence of sickness absence, reduction of work hours and work quality peaked at 8.7%, 15%, and 4.7%, respectively. Critical work was associated with higher odds of sickness absence and quality loss, but lower odds of unemployment and loss of hours. Younger age and recent COVID-19 were associated with higher odds of sickness absence, loss of work hours and quality. Chronic health conditions were associated with higher odds of sickness absence and quality loss. Having children was associated with lower odds of unemployment and loss of hours.

Conclusion: Despite low unemployment rates, productivity loss was observed at other indicators: sickness absence, loss of hours and quality. In addition, productivity was lost unequally among groups. When preparing for future crises, attention should be paid to broader indicators of productivity loss among different groups. Findings may help for offering targeted interventions to minimize losses in productivity and protect higher risk groups of workers.

Objective: This study aimed to construct a job-exposure matrix (JEM) for the risk of being infected by infectious agents through airborne or droplet transmission in an occupational setting, which might lead to a respiratory disease.

Methods: An established COVID-19-JEM formed the basis for the development of the general airborne infectious agents JEM. Nine researchers in occupational epidemiology from three European countries (Denmark, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom) discussed and agreed on which factors from the COVID-19-JEM were relevant and whether new factors or adjustments of risk levels were needed. Adjustments to the COVID-19 JEM were made in a structured iterative. based on an expert assessment, a JEM on solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure including information on hours per day working inside, and national data on hours per week on site. Finally, a risk score was assigned to all factors for each job title within the International Standard Classification of Occupations system 2008 (ISCO-08).

Results: This airborne infectious agents JEM contains five factors: (i) hours spent per week on site, (ii) hours spent per day working inside, (iii) number and (iv) nature of contacts, and (v) being in close physical contact to others. Per occupation, a risk score ranging from 1 (low risk) to 3 (high risk) was provided for all five factors separately.

Conclusion: This newly developed infectious agents JEM assesses the risk at population level using five factors. Following validation, this JEM could serve as a valuable tool in future studies investigating the role of work in the occurrence of a respiratory disease.

Objectives: Exposure to wood dust, resin acids, microbial and volatile components among sawmill workers may impair respiratory health, with inflammation indicated as a key mechanism. Previous, mostly cross-sectional studies have shown mixed results, and a conclusive association between wood dust exposure and chronic respiratory inflammation has therefore not yet been established. This study assessed associations between exposure to bioaerosols and volatile terpenes and serum inflammatory marker levels over three years.

Methods: Serum biomarkers and blood cell counts were analyzed based on 702 observations from 450 exposed sawmill workers and 102 observations from 65 unexposed sawmill workers in Norway at baseline and after three years. Job-exposure-matrices, based on measurements among the same cohort, were used to assess exposures for wood dust, endotoxins, resin acid, monoterpenes, fungal spores, and fungal fragments. Changes in exposures, biomarkers and cell counts over the study period, as well as group differences and potential cause-and-effect associations were assessed using linear mixed regression.

Results: Exposures were relatively low and below occupational limits, although variances were relatively high (GSD_tot 2.1-8.3), largely driven by differences between workers (GSD_bw 1.9-7.8). Serum CC-16 and mCRP were slightly higher after three years, whereas IL-1β, TNF-α and IL-10 levels were significantly lower among exposed compared with unexposed workers. Exposures positively associated with increases in biomarker levels included endotoxin with mCRP, monoterpenes with IL-10, and fungal spores with TNF-α and IL-8. Exposed workers had higher counts of total leucocytes, neutrophils, lymphocytes and basophils after three years. Several of the increased leucocyte counts were associated with concurrent increase in mCRP and IL-6 concentrations, predominantly in the exposed group. Conversely, increased CC-16 levels were associated with lower leucocyte and neutrophil counts, mainly in the unexposed group.

Conclusion: Continuous exposure to wood dust and related components for three years appears to induce a chronic low-grade inflammatory response among sawmill workers with a shift in cytokine profiles towards a less regulated, potentially more muted immune state.

Objective: Occupational differences in COVID-19 are well documented, but the empirical evidence on potential reasons for these differences remains limited. Possible reasons include pre-existing health conditions. This study investigated occupational differences in COVID-19 disease severity and whether they can be attributed to pre-existing health conditions.

Methods: Our study used German health insurance data covering 3.17 million insured individuals (age 18-67 years), with details on COVID-19-related hospitalization and mortality in 2020 and 2021, information on occupation (regrouped into four classifications) and pre-existing health conditions (divided into seven disease groups). In addition to descriptive statistics, we estimated multivariable Cox regression models with varying sets of adjustments.

Results: We found clear occupational differences in COVID-19 hospitalization and mortality, with the highest risks for the production sector (especially manufacturing), commercial services (especially cleaning) and for low-skilled occupations. These findings persisted after adjusting for age, sex, and region, and also after mutual adjustment for other occupational classifications. We also found some evidence that the association between occupation and disease severity was partly explained by pre-existing conditions, especially in the case of low skill levels.

Conclusions: Our findings provide support for occupational differences in COVID-19, where the occupational classifications under study were independently related to risk differences (eg, skill-level and job sector). Furthermore, we provide empirical evidence that differences by occupational skill levels are partly due to pre-existing conditions. This finding suggests that occupational inequalities in health increased during the pandemic, with those with poorer health who worked in disadvantaged occupations also being more likely to experience severe COVID-19 outcomes.

Objectives: This study aimed to (i) examine variance in the prevalence of workplace violence and fear of violence in the United Kingdom by industrial sector and (ii) determine the mental health effects thereof using longitudinal data.

Methods: We used the United Kingdom Household Panel Study (UKHLS), a nationally representative survey with mental health indicators collected annually allowing us to determine common mental disorders (CMD) at baseline, one year prior and one year later. Using weighted logistic regression and lagged dependent variable regression, we examined prevalence of violence and fear of violence by sector and the effect of violence on CMD risk. We supplemented our analyses with the views of those with lived experience.

Results: Workers employed in public administration and facilities had the highest risks of workplace violence, with predicted probabilities (PP) of 0.138 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.116-0.160], and these were not statistically different from the second highest sector of health, residential care, and social work (PP 0.118, 95% CI 0.103-0.133). Workplace violence increased CMD risk [adjusted odds ratio (ORadj) 1.400, 95% CI 1.182-1.658] as did fear of violence at work (ORadj 2.103, 95% CI 1.779-2.487), adjusting for prior CMD. Moreover, the effect of violence and fear of violence on CMD remained when we investigated CMD one year later.

Conclusions: A high prevalence of workplace violence and fear of workplace violence was found in multiple different industrial sectors - >1 in 10 workers were exposed to violence in the last 12 months in 30% of sectors and >1 in 20 workers were exposed in 70% of sectors. Both violence and fear of violence were associated with enhanced CMD risk at baseline and one year later.

Objective: Psychosocial work stress is a predictor of adverse pregnancy outcomes. However, there is limited comprehensive and conclusive evidence available on the associations between psychosocial work stress and adverse pregnancy outcomes. This systematic review and meta-analysis paper addressed this gap by synthesizing the available evidence.

Methods: Studies were retrieved from six electronic databases that include pregnant mothers as study population, psychosocial work stress as variable exposure, and adverse pregnancy outcomes - including pregnancy loss, gestational hypertension and diabetes mellitus, preterm birth, low birth weight, and low fetal growth - as the outcomes of interest. The quality and certainty of evidence were assessed. Depending on the study characteristics, either a fixed or random effect model was employed. Heterogeneity was assessed using I² statistics, and further subgroup and sensitivity analysis was employed as appropriate.

Results: A total of 26 studies (N=1 346 686) were included. Psychosocial work stress decreased birth weight by 77.09 grams, increased the occurrence of preeclampsia by 50%, and preterm birth by 18% with moderate certainty of evidence, and increased the chance of pregnancy loss by 20% with low certainty of evidence. With a low grading scale, low birth weight and small-for-gestational-age had no significant association with psychosocial work stress.

Conclusions: Psychosocial work-stress increased the risks of pre-eclampsia, preterm birth, and pregnancy loss, and decreased fetus weight. Therefore, occupational therapists, employers, policy makers, and relevant stakeholders should work together to minimize the impact of psychosocial work-stress on the mother and baby.

Objective: Risk of exit from work is both occupation- and country-specific. This study investigated occupational differences in working life expectancy (WLE) and reasons for working years lost (WYL) among employed workers in three Nordic countries.

Methods: We utilized registry-based cohorts of the employed population in Denmark (N=2 383 657), Finland (N=1 266 705) and Norway (N=1 761 166) to estimate WLE for ages 30-65 using the Sullivan method with 2015 data. We further estimated WYL due to sickness absence, unemployment, disability retirement, old-age retirement and other reasons. The analyses were stratified by gender and major occupational group (1st digit in the ISCO-88 code).

Results: Occupational differences in WLE and WYL were observed in all countries. The overall pattern across the countries showed that legislators, senior officials and managers and professionals generally had high WLE, while service and sales workers and employees in manual occupations tended to have lower WLE, with employees in elementary occupations performing the worst. Reasons for WYL varied with country. In general, disability retirement was a significant factor in Denmark, unemployment in Finland, and sickness absence in Norway.

Conclusion: A similar occupational pattern in WLE was observed across the countries, with some occupational groups consistently showing high or low WLE. However, the magnitude of occupational differences in WLE and the reasons for WYL varied across the countries.