Why business is bad for your health

Apr 11 2004

'Repeated exposure to rapid personnel expansion . . . predicts long-term sickness absence and hospital admission'

Downsizing in the workplace has been associated with increased sickness absence. However, few data are available on the possible health effects, on individuals, of rapid expansion.

Hugo Westerlund and others aimed to determine whether expansion, downsizing, outsourcing, and merging of work organisations are related to risk of subsequent long-term sickness absence and hospital admission.

They showed that large expansion might be a significant risk factor for long-term sickness absence and hospital admission in individuals with a complete employment record.

The investigators note that possible implications for occupational and public health should be brought to the attention of policy makers, company managers, and occupational health-care providers.

This week's Editorial from the Lancet suggests that absence from work costs employers and society money, thus, the re-engineering of work ought to perpetuate fulfilment and productivity in employees, not illness and disability.