INCREASED INJURIES ON NIGHT-SHIFT

Concern over safety has resulted in legislation by, for example, the C ommission of the European Union, to limit the number of hours worked a t night, There is, however, no direct evidence that injuries a re more frequent at night. We analysed all 4645 injury incidents reported for a year on a rotating three-shift system in a large engineering compan y where the a-priori accident risk appeared to be constant. The relati ve risk of sustaining an injury was 1.23 (95% CI 1.14-1.31) higher on the night shift than on the morning shift, which showed the lowest inc idence. The type of work (machine versus self-paced) affected the patt ern and nature of injuries; for self-paced work the relative risk of m ore serious injury on the night shift compared with the morning shift was 1.82 (1.30-2.34).