12/03/2008
The French national occupational disease monitoring and prevention network, a loose grouping of 33 occupational health referral centres, reports a rise in the number of mental health problems among workers seen between 2001 and 2006.

The network, set up in 2001, keeps medical records on employees referred to the centres, located in university hospitals, by their occupational health doctors or GPs, with a view to determining whether they can be assigned an occupational origin.

Rather than producing representative primary care findings, it is a sentinel workplace health surveillance system through its national occupational diseases database which currently holds "33 000 work-related health problems".

The database reveals a "marked rise" in the proportion of mental health problems among both men and women, notes the network’s annual report.

At 29%, they even head the list of women’s referrals, ahead of skin diseases (22%), respiratory system disorders (17%) and bone and joint system disorders (MSDs, 13%).

The most common problems for men are respiratory system disorders (38%), especially asbestos-related diseases (lung cancer, pleural plaque), tumours (13%), skin diseases (11%), bone and joint disorders (10%), psychological (7%) and hearing (5%) problems.