The social and occupational distribution of work-related health risks

Background. Until today work-related health risks in globo did not receive prominent attention in explaining socio-economic differences in health. Especially distinct aspects of the occupational risk have been connected with this field of research. As a consequence a more general assessment of the socially different health consequences of working conditions is needed.
In occupational health and occupational psychology an elaborated body of scientific knowledge on the link between working conditions and health has been generated. This broad scientific field exceeds traditional occupational diseases, caused by exposure to harmful (physical) working conditions. It has also been demonstrated how new occupational risks, related to psychosocial stress, precarity, contractual and organisational flexibility can bring about a number of work-related health problems. The emergence of these new risks is associated with profound socio-economic and demographic transformations that changed the world of work.
While occupational health research has contributed to a very good understanding of the aetiology of all kinds of specific work-related risk factors and health outcomes, it largely neglected the interrelations of these risks in terms of social and occupational categories. However, to understand the impact of occupational health risks on social inequalities in health, an approach that highlights such mutual links between occupational risks and social and occupational categories is needed.
Aims. Starting from a sociological approach, this study explores the social and occupational distribution of a number of work-related health risks. We looked at the interrelations of physical and psychosocial risks with a number of social (gender, age, educational attainment) and occupational categories (economic sectors, occupational categories, organisational en contractual flexibility). For this study a dataset from the 2004 Quality of Labour Monitor (QLM) with information about 11,099 Flemish employees is used.
Methods. The physical and psychosocial health risk variables used in the analyses are constructed by means of a Principal Components Analysis. The relationship of these risk factors with various self-reported health outcomes is assessed by means of Logistic Regression Analyses. Furthermore, a number of ANOVAs have been used to show their social and occupational distribution.
Main results. There are differences according to social and occupational categories relating to physical and psychosocial occupational health risks. Furthermore, not all risk variables are distributed in the same way among the occupational and social variables. For example, not all psychosocial risks tend to be higher in the lower educated categories, on the contrary there are indications that lower educated people have higher qualitative risks, while the higher educated categories have higher scores on quantitative risks. In general, we clearly observed patterns in the distribution of occupational health risks among the population. The unequal distribution of occupational health risks among occupational and social categories is a crucial factor in explaining social inequalities in health.