Occupational injury rates among Norwegian farmers: A sociotechnical perspective.

INTRODUCTION: This study addressed relative injury risk among Norwegian farmers, who are mostly self-employed and run small farm enterprises. The aim was to explore the relative importance of individual, enterprise, and work environment risks for occupational injury and to discuss the latent conditions for injuries using sociotechnical system theory. METHOD: Injury report and risk factors were collected through a survey among Norwegian farm owners in November 2012. The response rate was 40% (n = 2,967). Annual work hours were used to calculate injury rates within groups. Poisson regression using the log of hours worked as the offset variable allowed for the modeling of adjusted rate ratios for variables predictive of injury risk. Finally, safety climate measures were introduced to assess potential moderating effects on risk. RESULTS: Results showed that the most important risk factors for injuries were the design of the workplace, type of production, and off-farm work hours. The main results remained unchanged when adding safety climate measures, but the measures moderated the injury risk for categories of predominant production and increased the risk for farmers working with family members and/or employees. An overall finding is how the risk factors were interrelated. CONCLUSIONS: The study identified large structural diversities within and between groups of farmers. The study drew attention to operating conditions rather than individual characteristics. The farmer's role (managerial responsibility) versus regulation and safety climate is important for discussions of injury risk. Practical Applications: We need to study sub-groups to understand how regulation and structural changes affect work conditions and management within different work systems, conditioned by production. It is important to encourage actors in the political-economic system to become involved in issues that were found to affect the safety of farmers.

Physician Notified Work-Related Diseases Among Farmers in Norway: Data from 2007 - 2016.

Introduction: This study provided a profile of work-related diseases in the farming sector notified by physicians to the Norwegian Labor Inspection Authority's (NLIA) Registry for Work-Related Diseases (RAS) over a 10-year period.Methods: Data for the occupational code "farmers" were extracted from RAS for the period 2007-2016. We performed a descriptive analysis to obtain frequency, percentage, and incidence distribution of the data. We also explored the relationship of the notified diagnosis with gender, age, occupational exposures and the type of reporting physicians.Results: Four hundred and sixty-nine cases of work-related diseases among farmers were notified in the period 2007-2016. Eighty-seven percent of the reported cases were males. The incidence of work-related diseases for the entire study period was computed to be 114/100 000 workers. The incidence and number of cases notified were highest among males and for the age group 55-74 years. Noise was the most frequently reported occupational exposure accounted for 291 cases. Hearing loss constituted for 62% of the notified cases, followed by respiratory diseases that accounted for 20% of the cases. Forty-eight cases of skin diseases, while only a few cases of musculoskeletal (n = 7) and mental disorders (n = 1) were notified. There was a strong association (λ = 0.51) between occupational exposure and notified diagnosis, and a moderate association (λ = 0.32) between type of reporting physician and the notified diagnosis.Conclusion: This profile of the physician notified work-related diseases among farmers in Norway yielded a suppressed estimate of the actual incidence of cases. The biased distribution of nature and number of work-related diseases amongst farmers is primarily attributed to the significant undercount of cases. Physician underreporting of cases to the NLIA coupled with lack of Occupational Health Services coverage of workers in the farming sector contributes to this undercount of cases.

Work environment factors and work sustainability in Norwegian cooks.

OBJECTIVES: Cooks have increased morbidity and mortality. A high turnover has also been reported. We aimed to elucidate work environment and work sustainability in Norwegian cooks. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A questionnaire inquiring about working conditions and work participation was sent to 2082 cooks who had qualified from 1988 onwards. Of these, 894 responded. Time at work was analyzed with Kaplan-Meier plots and possible determinants for quitting work as a cook was analyzed with Cox regression. RESULTS: The median time at work was 16.6 years. There were differences in sustainability between types of kitchens for both sexes (p = 0.00). The median time in the profession was 9.2 years for the cooks in restaurants, while the cooks in institutions and canteens showed a substantially higher sustainability with 75.4% still at work after 10 years, and 57% still at work after 20 years in the profession. Of those still at work as a cook, 91.4% reported a good or very good contentment, and the 67.4% who expected to stay in the profession the next 5 years frequently answered that excitement of cooking, the social working environment, and the creative features of cooking were reasons to continue. Musculoskeletal complaints were the most common health-related reason for leaving work as a cook, while working hours was the most common non-health-related reason. CONCLUSIONS: There are significant differences in work sustainability between the cooks in the different types of kitchens. The identified determinants for length of time in the occupation can be used for preventive purposes.

Nonfatal occupational injuries in norwegian farmers.

BACKGROUND: Agriculture ranks among the most dangerous trades worldwide. There is, however, still a lack of knowledge on nonfatal injuries in agriculture. The aim of this study was to describe the nature and occurrence of nonfatal injuries in farmers in two counties in central Norway. METHODS: A questionnaire was sent to 7,004 farmers in Norway. We asked for information about the respondents and the farm, whether the farmer had had work-related injuries on the farm during the past 12 months, and details about the incidence and seriousness of the injury. RESULTS: A total of 2,699 respondents gave a response rate of 42%. Of the respondents, 249 (9.2%) reported one or more work-related injuries. The most usual cause of injury involved an animal, and >75% of these happened inside the outbuilding. Among these, 17.5% had a consequence of sick leave or a more serious result. When all the accidents were analyzed by stepwise logistic regression, only the variables: works alone, has >3,500 stipulated working hours at the farm, and the type of production were statistical significant explanatory variables for having an injury. CONCLUSION: Incorporating safety aspects to a greater extend in the design and construction of outbuildings would make a substantial contribution to injury prevention in agriculture.

[Occupational lung cancer in Sør-Trøndelag county]. / Arbeidsbetinget lungekreft i Sør-Trøndelag.

BACKGROUND: Lung cancer can be caused by occupational exposure. This is not always recognised or reported, and not all patients receive the benefits to which they are entitled. MATERIAL AND METHOD: We collected occupational case histories for patients from Sør-Trøndelag county with a first-time diagnosis of lung cancer. The number of reported cases of occupationally related lung cancer was collected from the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority, and information on approval of occupational illness was collected from the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Authority (NAV). RESULTS: 105 patients with lung cancer took part in the study, 73 men and 32 women. Among the men, altogether 12 cases (16%) were assessed as likely and 16 (22%) as possibly occupationally related. Among the women, none of the cases were assessed as occupationally related. The reporting frequency from the health regions to the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority varied from 1.7% to 5.1%. Altogether 9 out of 11 likely cases and 5 out of 12 possible cases of occupationally related lung cancer were granted injury compensation by the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Authority. INTERPRETATION: In this study, we found that approximately 20% of the cases of lung cancer in men are occupationally related, and that the underreporting of occupationally related lung cancer appears to be considerable. The obligation of doctors to report to the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority should be made better known. Most likely, more patients would have had their lung cancer verified as an occupational illness and could have received injury compensation if they had been aware of the opportunity to apply for this.

Neuropsychological function and past exposure to metallic mercury in female dental workers.

The aim of this study was to see if dental personnel with previous exposure to metallic mercury have later developed disturbances in cognitive function. Ninety-one female participants who had been selected from a previous health survey of dental personnel were investigated neuropsychologically within the following domains: motor function, short-term memory, working memory, executive function, mental flexibility, and visual and verbal long-term memory. The scores were mainly within normal ranges. Relationships between an exposure score, the duration of employment before 1990, and previously measured mercury in urine as independent variables and the neuropsychological findings as dependent variables, were analyzed by multiple linear regression controlling for age, general ability, length of education, alcohol consumption, and previous head injuries. The only relationship that was statistically significant in the hypothesized direction was between the previously measured urine mercury values and visual long-term memory, where the urine values explained 30% of the variability. As the study had a low statistical power and also some other methodological limitations, the results have to be interpreted with caution. Even so, we think it is right to conclude that neuropsychological findings indicative of subsequent cognitive injuries are difficult to find in groups of otherwise healthy dental personnel with previous occupational exposure to mercury.

Occurrence of cognitive and neurological symptoms in norwegian dentists.

OBJECTIVES: Previous investigations have presented some evidence of late cognitive effects in dental personnel exposed to metallic mercury. We wanted to examine if Norwegian dentists have an increased prevalence of symptoms consistent with neurological and/or cognitive malfunction. METHODS: The study group consisted of 406 dentists from central Norway and 217 controls from the general population, all under the age of 70. They had responded to a standardised postal questionnaire (Euroquest) inquiring about seven symptoms in regard to neurology, psychosomatics, memory, concentration, mood, sleep disturbances, and fatigue. A score was calculated for each symptom based on 4 to 15 single questions scored on a scale from 1 (seldom or never) to 4 (very often). RESULTS: The dentists and controls had a participation rate of 57.2% and 42.9% respectively. The dentists reported no more cognitive symptoms than the controls, with low average symptom scores from 1.16 for neurological symptoms in males to 1.73 for fatigue in females. Corresponding figures for the controls were 1.22 and 1.77. There were a total of 1.2% of the dentists and 1.8% of the controls who reported having three or more of the seven symptoms "often" or more frequently. CONCLUSION: Norwegian dentists do not report more cognitive and neurological symptoms than controls from the general population.