2023-04-18 08:06:47
18 avril 2023
Since 2003, Public Health France has endeavored to quantify and describe work-related illnesses (MCP); these work-related illnesses which are not recognized as occupational illnesses by social security schemes. Constantly increasing, they primarily concern musculoskeletal disorders and psychological suffering. Details.
Public Health France publishes this Tuesday the results of the surveillance of occupational diseases (MCP), carried out since 2003 with the Medical Labor Inspectorate. As a reminder, according to the definition of Public Health France, PCMs concern « any pathology or any symptom caused or aggravated by work and not having been recognized as an occupational disease”. Constantly increasing, PCMs weigh heavily on public health.
Over the period studied, 2014-2018, the reporting rates of MCPs were multiplied by 1.4 in men and 1.5 in women. In all, 5 to 7% of employees have a pathology or symptoms, not recognized as an occupational disease, which occupational doctors nevertheless consider to be linked to professional activity, relays the report from Public Health France.
Women more affected than men
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and mental suffering are at the top of the most frequently reported MCPs. In detail, women are more affected than men by these two categories of PCM – from 3.1% to 4.4% among women, from 2.4% to 3.2% among men, between 2015 and 2018. Mental suffering increased continuously between 2012 and 2018, with an acceleration from 2016, from 1.8 to 2.7% in men and from 3.5% to 6.2% in women.
Other information, workers are more exposed to MSDs – subject to repetitive movements, bad postures and hard work. For psychic suffering, it would be the opposite, the executives would be the first concerned. Public Health France advises, however, to approach these results with caution, due to possible under-reporting of psychological difficulties on the part of workers.
The organization of work often in question
With regard to MSDs, 75% of the cases of MCP reported had not been recognized as an occupational disease although they corresponded to an occupational disease picture. « Due, most often, to a lack of knowledge of the employee or an insufficient diagnostic assessment, explains Public Health France.
With regard to mental suffering, according to the indications provided in the report, “organizational, relational and ethical factors accounted for 99% of the agents incriminated, and nearly half of them related to the functional organization of work (work overload or under-load, changes in the organization, malfunctions in the hierarchical prescriptions, lack of recognition, lack of means)”.
“Limit the burden of occupational exposure”
Without a corresponding table, mental illnesses can however be recognized as occupational illnesses according to certain criteria, via the Regional Committee for the Recognition of Occupational Diseases (CRRMP). Between 2012 and 2016, the number of requests was multiplied by 5. « Among the psychological suffering files sent to the CRRMPs, approximately 50% are recognized as being of professional origin, whereas this rate is limited to 20% for all other pathologies”notes the report.
The monitoring of PCMs should contribute to measuring more precisely the real impact of work on physical and mental health. This will thus allow « to estimate the under-declaration of occupational disease, to target preventive measures and to change the tables of occupational diseases with the aim of limiting the burden linked to occupational exposure”, indicates Public Health France
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