Exposure to cancer risk factors in the workplace remains an important and preventable cause of disease in Europe. A new study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) analyzes the situation in the health and social care sector (HeSCare) in Europe.
The research, published in the European Journal of Public Health, is based on the Workers' Exposure Survey (WES), carried out by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA).
This survey, the first of its kind in Europe, collects detailed information from workers on tasks, exposure circumstances, and use of protective measures to estimate probable exposure to 24 cancer risk factors.
WES includes 24,402 telephone interviews conducted between 2022 and 2023 with workers from Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland and Spain. Of the participants, 3,041 worked in the health and social care sector, which represents approximately 11% of the European Union workforce.
The results show that 29.5% of workers in this sector were exposed to at least one cancer risk factor evaluated during the last working week, while 7.8% were exposed to two or more.
