A wide range of workplace conditions have been implicated as risk factors for a variety of health problems. These workplace conditions include shift work, long work hours, psychosocial stressors, as well as physical conditions.
Occupational groups exposed to a large number of work stressors are found to be at high risk for hypertension, cardiovascular disease, stroke, peptic ulcer disease, headache, musculoskeletal disorders, burnout, depression, anxiety and other undesirable outcomes.
Many jobs in America today are making people sick.
From the lowest to the highest-paying jobs, workers are suffering from a variety of illnesses stemming from exposure to stressful work environments.
Job stressors of many kinds such as insecure contracts, lack of respect, lack of control, long hours, shortened or skipped breaks, fear of layoff, unpaid time, diminished benefits including health insurance and pension, all contribute significantly to mental health problems such as burnout and depression and to chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, and coronary artery disease. Many of these illnesses could be prevented if we acknowledge their causes and act now.
Workers sometimes have a sense that their jobs are making them sick though the serious and life- threatening nature of these health consequences may only become apparent after years of exposure. Job-related health problems are also frequently dismissed as being individual problems or personal weakness rather than as predictable outcomes of the way work is organized. The medical profession frequently contributes to this misunderstanding by ignoring working conditions as it sees most illness as the result of individual differences and/or unhealthy behaviors.
We need to change all this.