Shift work affects your health

As someone who did afternoon shift for many years in a row, I found these two articles very interesting. I should note here that after getting HIV I had to end shiftwork as I couldn't stay awake until 11pm at night. By about 8 or 9pm I was exhausted and couldn't function properly. Thankfully it's the law here that if the shiftwork hours are having an effect on your health then the boss has to come up with a solution; in my case going to the normal hours of day shift.

It can be I think the case of the employer forgetting about the status of the worker. It can be hard for a person to understand the full implications of being HIV+ when outwardly people look OK. David for instance was asked at work today if he could finish at 3, then come back at 11pm and do a graveyard shift. He asked me about it on the phone, and I gave my opinion as someone who'd done shiftwork; namely not to do it. Although it's double time for the shift without a ten hour break, it's just not worth the effect it would have on his health.

Co-incidentally, the union emailed a thing today about shift work.

In 2007 the World Health Organisation released a study which indicated that such shift work can have a carcinogenic (cancer-causing) effect, primarily breast and prostate cancer. Further studies since the release of the initial report have concluded that, as well as the obvious dangers of cancer, shift-workers are also prone to many other negative effects.

The University of Queensland conducted a study to follow up on these results and, as well as the carcinogenic effects, found that shift-workers had more adverse lifestyle behaviours, poor nutritional intake and an increased likelihood of being overweight and/or smoking. The most recent survey by the ABS in 2010 determined that up to 16% of the workforce is shift-workers – and there’s a chance that number will increase.

It’s a subject that isn’t to be taken lightly, and in countries like Denmark compensation payments have already been made to shift-workers who worked for decades in their positions and developed breast cancer. While the science was debated as tenuous, payouts were only made in instances where “no other significant factors”, such as family history, could have resulted in the development of cancer. more

And they linked to this at the Sydney Morning Herald.

Back in 2007, for example, the World Health Organisation (WHO) outlined the carcinogenic consequences of the graveyard shift. Carcinogens are elements known to cause cancer. In the case of shift workers, studies have shown the breast is the primary area of affliction for women while for men it’s the prostate. 

After the release of the WHO findings, the carcinogenic link was deemed to be so strong that in Denmark the government started paying compensation to female night-shift workers who developed breast cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a subsidiary of WHO, even deemed the effect of shift work to be similar to the effect of industrial chemicals. 

These results demonstrate the stress placed on the body when people work unnatural hours. But even more evidence exists to support this position. 

An analysis by the University of Queensland on over a dozen studies found shift workers are more likely to snack on bad foods and spend less time exercising, the combination of which damages their health. It’s not surprising, then, that extensive research published in the British Medical Journal last year concluded shift workers were 41 per cent more likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke. more

Over the years too I noticed how incredibly isolating shift work is. Being as I was on permanent afternoon shift, it was like living in another time zone. Always at work at night, there was little chance for the usual socialising that people do.