Overtime, injuries, and accidents
Although acute injuries and fatalities receive most of the attention within a typical safety program, a growing body of evidence suggests that long work hours also adversely affect workers' health and well-being. A study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (see the first resource listed in the box) provides a comprehensive review of 52 research reports that examined the relationships between long work hours and illnesses, injuries, health behaviors, and performance. A variety of the reports noted that overtime was associated with poorer perceived general health, increased injury rates, more illnesses, or increased mortality. To be fair, some of the reports did not support these findings, but a relationship between long work hours, decreasing worker performance, and higher accident rates seems intuitive to me.
Work schedules differ among power plants in many ways, and each plant has its own approach to accommodating the needs of employer and employees. The research reports could not come to a consensus on the best work schedule, based on the available data. For example, the major arguments against 12-hour shifts tend to revolve around increased fatigue and compromised alertness, which thereby reduces safety. The potential for impairment arises because shift work, especially the night shift, can disrupt our circadian rhythms. On the other hand, 12-hour shifts can be popular with workers because they compress the work week and increase worker time to pursue other interests.
Several of the reports did fail to account for potential contributing factors. For instance, jobs performed during long shifts might be inherently more dangerous, or people working extended-hour schedules may have different personal characteristics (including those related to age, gender, parental responsibilities, or underlying health status) that affect their risk of injury and stress.
Most of these studies used only self-reported job evaluations, and the vast majority of the published studies were conducted in Europe, Asia, and Scandinavia. Only a handful of studies have been conducted in the U.S., none of those was with a large sample size, and the U.S. studies were typically industry-specific, thereby limiting their general usefulness.
2. Metal, not men. Swarmy the robot recently completed its cleanup assignment—removing the last drum-full of thick sludge from the bottom of a deeply buried storage tank at Sandia National Laboratories. The 47-year-old tank's shape, depth, and position made cleanup efforts difficult. Its low-oxygen, confined-space environment precluded manned entry and inspection. Courtesy: Sandia National Laboratories
The Dembe Study
The most useful study that analyzed the relationship between overtime and extended working hours and the risk of occupational injuries and illnesses was published by Dembe, et al. (see box, #2). This study used a nationally representative sample of working U.S. adults. Dembe's hypothesis was that those working overtime or an extended work schedule would have an increased likelihood of reporting an occupational injury or illness compared with those working less-demanding schedules.
The study was based on responses from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). This database contains 110,236 job records representing 89,729 person-years of accumulated working time over a 13-year period (1987–2000). NLSY was used to evaluate workers' job histories, work schedules, and incidence of occupational injury and illness. Multivariate analytical techniques were used to estimate the relative risk of long working hours per day, extended hours per week, commute times, and overtime schedules on reporting work-related injuries or illnesses, after adjusting for important factors such as age, gender, occupation, industry sector, and geographical region.
The study found that jobs with overtime schedules were associated with a 61% higher injury hazard rate compared with jobs without overtime. Also, working at least 12 hours per day was associated with a 37% higher hazard rate, and working at least 60 hours per week was associated with a 23% higher hazard rate. In addition, jobs with long work hours were not necessarily more risky merely because they were concentrated in inherently hazardous industries, hazardous occupations, or due to the demographic characteristics of employees working those schedules. The findings confirmed the hypothesis that long work hours indirectly precipitated workplace accidents through a process that introduced fatigue or stress in affected workers.
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