Economic consequences of occupational disorders in women with repetitive industrial work

Background: In a previous study, we found a three to four timesincrease in sick listing and disability pensioning among 269women in industrial repetitive work, as compared to 290 referentwomen in varied work. Methods: Here, by using an economic model,we estimated the costs for society of the work-environment dysfunctionsin the industrial group. Results: The costs for disability pensionsin the exposed group were 38.8 kSEK per person year at riskand for sick-leave 27.2 kSEK per person year, while the directcosts for health care were 2.2 kSEK per person year. Among referents,the sums were much lower: 5.6 kSEK per person year for disabilitypensions and 7.9 kSEK per person year for sick-leave and costsfor health care were 0.9 kSEK per person year. The costs (lossesin production) per person year of employment were 4.7 timeshigher for the exposed women than for the referents. The differencewas 53, 800 SEK (1 ECU = 8.74 SEK), of which disability pensioningwas 62%, sick-leave 35% and healthcare 3%. The actual transfersin the social insurance system corresponded to 45.1 MSEK amongthe exposed workers, as compared to 9.1 MSEK for the referents.Conclusions: Repetitive industrial work results in huge costs.Hence, preventive and other measures are needed.