WORKING-CONDITIONS, LIVING-CONDITIONS AND PHYSICAL HEALTH AMONG PRISON STAFF IN FRANCE

A cross-sectional epidemiological survey was conducted among prison st aff in France to investigate the relationships between working conditi ons and health. The sample included men and women 20 to 64 years old b elonging to all categories of prison personnel : prison guards, admini strative staff, socioeducational workers, technicians, health care wor kers, and managers (n = 4587, response rate 45.7 %). A mailed self-adm inistered questionnaire was used to assess sociodemographic characteri stics, working conditions, and physical and mental disorders. Multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted to determine the effects of working conditions and social relationships on health of prison sta ff. However, the results reported here only concern 17 health disorder s : body mass index, sick leave, medication use, accidents, digestive disorders, lower extremities and back disorders, hypertension, hemorrh oids, arthritis, skin disorders, urinary infections, chronic bronchiti s, cholesterol, gastric ulcer, respiratory infections, ocular disorder s. The living non professional conditions mostly associated with healt h disorders were financial difficulties (OR : 1.9 for digestive disord ers, 1.8 for gastric ulcer, 1.7 for medication use) and irregularity o f meals (OR = 1.5 for digestive disorders, and hypertention). In the o ccupational environment, the factors most associated with health disor ders are seniority (OR = 4.2 for arthritis, 2.3 for cholesterol) and c onstraints (OR = 1.7 for lower extremities disorders). In spite of som e limits associated to this kind of study, relationships between occup ational and non occupational factors and physical health conditions we re observed; the results also painted out the protective role of the s ocial relationships for health conditions.