Study finds that pressure at work can be deadly
People have long thought that there was a connection between working too hard and experiencing health issues. However, it was hard to tell if workers who put in the extra hours already had health conditions or if they were caused by the job itself. Some new studies shed a bit of light on the situation.
Researchers carried out the study by looking at the changes to a company between 1996 and 2006, when there were increased demands on the company and an increased production need. The company had not been planning for this and scaling up; the demand came unexpectedly, from outside sources. As such, the workers who were already employed were simply asked to do more.
Over that 10-year period, the amount of health issues among those workers notably increased.
The impact seemed especially bad for female workers. There was an increase in severe depression treatment needs, and the use of anti-stroke and heart attack medication went up.
According to the reports, a 10 percent jump in production needs meant female workers were 2.5 percent more likely to have depression. They were also roughly 7.7 percent more likely to seek out drugs for strokes and heart attacks.
Additionally, the study found that men and women were both more likely to be harmed in work-related accidents.
Researchers did note that the lack of similar evidence for men did not mean men were not impacted at all, as there could have been other consequences that were not noted.
As this study shows, pressure and stress at work can be very detrimental to employees, and they must know what options they have to seek workers’ compensation in Nebraska.
Source: The Washington Post, “The clearest proof yet that your job is killing you,” Jeff Guo, July 19, 2016