Illness and reasons for absences in the road maintenance services (ASTRA2004/019)
Overview
Background & policy context:
About 4’000 to 6’000 employees work for the Swiss road maintenance services (SER). In the past years, the SER were able to reduce dramatically the frequency of accidents. However, besides the risk of accidents, the workers also have a number of other risk factors in their work environment that can either provoke or contribute to a large array of pathologies. The goal of this study was to improve our knowledge about the health status of the employees of the SER and to identify causes for short and long term absences.
Objectives:
This study is focusing on aspects regarding occupational medicine, ergonomics and occupational hygiene to understand the causes for diseases and absences in the road maintenance services. Studying work activities, physical and psychological stress, postures, tool handling, dangerous substances, and air pollutants will help identify potential risks for the workers' health.
The results of this study will allow proposing measures for adjusting work conditions and for defining future occupational medical services.
Methodology:
The project consists of the following steps:
1. A preliminary analysis of the work places and development of targeted research methods
2. A systematic medical examination of employees that includes paraclinical tests defined during the first step. This will permit to define the overall health status of the employees, to identify stress factors and diseases as well as impairments specific for this group of workers.
3. Examinations of work activities and health during all four seasons.
4. Finally, the results will be analysed and presented in the form of a report and a list of propositions how the work conditions may be improved regarding aspects of occupational health.
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