June 22, 2005—The UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published a new report giving detailed information on the extent of work-related ill health in Great
Britain: Self-reported work-related illness in 2003/04: Results from the Labour Force Survey (.pdf file). Highlights were previously published in November 2004.
According to the report, in 2003-04, 29.8 million working days were lost to work-related illness. On average, each ill person took an estimated 22 days off work during that 12-month period, which when averaged across the working population represents an annual loss of 1.3 days per worker.
Musculoskeletal disorders were the most commonly reported types of work-related illness, followed by stress, depression, or anxiety, with corresponding estimates of 1.1 million and 0.6 million people reporting a current or past illness. Although the estimated annual working days lost were similar for the two conditions, the average annual days lost per case was higher for stress, depression, or anxiety (28 days) than for musculoskeletal disorders (19 days).
