Important Difference between Occupational Hazard Exposure among Shift Workers and Other Workers; Comparing Workplace before and after 1980

Abstract

Improving health and safety at work has been an important issue for the European Union since the 1980s. The existing literature supports that shift work is associated with multiple indicators of poor health but frequently neglects the potential impact of occupational hazards. This study aims at describing and comparing the exposure to different workplace hazards among shift and other workers before and after 1980. Exposure to different workplace hazards (noise, dust, pollutant, and other physical stressors) were analyzed among 119,413 participants from the UK Biobank cohort. After stratifying the analyses before and after 1980, exposure was compared between shift and other workers. Potential confounding variables (sex, age, ethnicity, education level, occupational category, and neuroticism) were adjusted for in the log-binomial regression. Shift workers had a higher prevalence ratio (PR) than other workers of being exposed to almost all identified hazards both before or after 1980. They were also more likely to be exposed to multiple hazards compared to other workers, both before 1980 (PR: 1.25; 95% CI: 1.21-1.30) and after 1980 (PR: 1.34; 95% CI: 1.30-1.38). The prevalence of all measured risk factors was higher after 1980 than before 1980 among shift workers. Of note, the work environment has improved overall for other workers. Our findings suggest that changes at the workplace have benefited other workers more than shift workers as they are still more exposed to all occupational hazards.

Keywords: epidemiology; hazardous substances; occupational health; pollutant; shift work; work environment; world disease.

Figure 1

Percent of shift workers among job categories before and after 1980. ***: p-value < 0.001.

Figure 2

Prevalence ratio of occupational risk exposure among shift workers compared with other workers. (A) Prevalence for shift workers compared to other workers (reference) before 1980; (B) Prevalence for shift workers compared to other workers (reference) after 1980. Analysis controlled for sex, ethnicity, education level, age, and occupational category.

Figure 3

Prevalence ratio of occupational risk exposure, exposure after 1980 compared with before 1980. (A) Prevalence for shift workers after 1980, compared to shift workers before 1980 (reference); (B) Prevalence for other workers after 1980, compared to other workers before 1980 (reference). Analysis controlled for sex, ethnicity, education level, and age.

Figure 4

Number of workplace hazards comparing shift and other workers.