Study examines UK women’s workplace health crisis

IOSH has taken a look at a report entitled The UK’s hidden crisis in women’s workplace health worsens, published by the  British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS) and the Chartered Society for Worker Health Protection, to see how its findings can inform OSH.

Since its last report a year before, BOHS notes that the proportion of women getting ill because of work has increased even more, and there is even more evidence that there is significant under-reporting of work-induced illness among women and of employers not taking the issues seriously.

BOHS has republished the substance of its previous report because, as it states, ‘things have not got better, the problems are the same, the solutions are the same and the impact on women is greater’.

The new report aims to start what should be a national discussion of a national crisis. It examines instances of how the relationship between work and society is failing women in workplace health protection.

Key claims/findings

Still not enough is being done to monitor, measure and report the scale of the problem. The GB Health and Safety Executive’s annual statistics still do not highlight the issue.

Women are carrying more of the burden of occupational disease than men; asbestos diagnoses in the under-50 age group are rising for women and almost on a par with incidences of the disease in men; and as more women do shift work, there is more evidence of an association between breast cancer and reproductive illness.

Moreover, the absence of a UK strategy on workplace exposures affecting the female reproductive system is leading to gaps in protection; no meaningful progress has been made in addressing the growing women’s health crisis; and the exclusion of an explicit requirement to report mental and physical injury under RIDDOR leaves women’s safety insufficiently protected.

Conclusions

BOHS calls for all those involved in occupational health protection to develop a focus on the impact of the workplace on women’s health. It also calls on the government to use the impact of the workplace on women’s health as a measure of national equality policy, health and safety impact and social sustainability.

‘A new deal for working people cannot be at the cost of women’s health,’ the organisation says.

The report’s calls to action comprise empowerment for women, more accountability for employers, better focus on the protection of women’s workplace health, and better leadership by professional bodies in supporting their members to identify risks to women’s workplace health.

Key takeaways

‘More than 100,000 more women are being made ill by work, and that is probably an underestimate. Recent benefit reforms are likely to hit women even harder because the ill health caused to them by poor working conditions falls in the categories most likely to be at risk.

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‘Despite campaigns to support women with the health issues that they bring to work, the country has no strategy to protect women from being disproportionately and negatively affected by workplaces designed for men and a regulatory system designed for a male-dominated industrial past.’ Kevin Bampton, CEO, BOHS

Implications for practice –  IOSH’s take

Long-term sickness average rates have reached almost 35% for women, overtaking men for the first time, with a staggering 1.5 million women off work for ill health. Women have been found to have more work-related cases of carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, respiratory diseases and infectious diseases – this is not an issue related only to women’s mental health.

Research has shown that 42% of women were not comfortable about raising issues about health at work, indicating a clear need for attention to be paid to reporting procedures and the culture surrounding the reporting of ill health. Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act places a responsibility on employers to ensure they protect the health of their workers, even if they are being supplied on an agency contract by another organisation. While the focus of most OSH activity is on the prevention of accidents, the consequent reduced focus on workplace health inherently favours the protection of male workers.

The duty to risk-assess the susceptibility of workers to ill health may be being ignored, which can be taken as a clear action point for OSH professionals.

Read the full report here .