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The European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) has published a research report constituting the third phase of a study project on the impact of psychosocial exposures at work on health. This latest report focuses on the economic costs of cardiovascular disease and depression attributable to psychosocial exposures at work in the 28 countries of the European Union (2015 data).
The five psychosocial exposures at work selected in this report are:
- work-related stress,
- effort-reward imbalance,
- job insecurity,
- long working hours,
- moral harassment in the workplace
These exposures can lead toan :
- increased risk of depression (psychological suffering, sleep disorders, isolation, etc.),
- cardiovascular disease (heart attack, stroke, atrial fibrillation, etc.),
- premature death (particularly from suicide or heart attack),
- absenteeism (sick leave),
- presenteeism (working while sick).
These consequences degrade workers’ quality of life, reduce their capacity to work and their income, generate medical expenses and, in the most serious cases, lead to premature death. Employers, meanwhile, bear the lion’s share of the economic costs, via absenteeism, presenteeism and lost productivity in particular.
For the year 2015, psychosocial exposures at work would have had a major economic impact in the European Union:
- the total cost of depression was estimated at between €44.7 billion and €103.1 billion;
- the total cost of cardiovascular disease was estimated at between 9.5 billion and 11.2 billion euros for men, and between 2.3 billion and 3 billion euros for women.
