AS A VARIABLE CAN BE A SURROGATE FOR SOME WORKING-CONDITIONS - FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH SICKNESS ABSENCE

More than twice as many workdays are lost to illness than for personal or family reasons. We examine possible workplace determinants of sick ness absence among French workers in the food processing industry. The se workers are exposed to a variety of environmental and organizationa l constraints, cold, uncomfortable postures, assembly-line work, and i rregular schedules. In 1987-1988, a medical examination and questionna ire were administered to 558 men and 790 women as part of a study of 1 7 poultry slaughterhouses and 6 canning factories. Women's and men's w orking conditions were very different, and their sickness absences for musculoskeletal and respiratory illnesses were related to some of the ir specific working conditions: cold exposure, ill-adapted work statio ns, and problems with their supervisors and co-workers. If male-and fe male workers were combined into a single analysis that adjusted for se x, many of the associations operant for a single sex could no longer b e seen.