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The Healthy Worker Effect: The Need to Reevaluate a Broad Spectrum of Occupational Risks

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New Risks: Issues and Management

Part of the book series: Advances in Risk Analysis ((AIRA,volume 6))

Abstract

There is evidence that the practice of standardizing the mortality experience of occupational groups to that of the general population introduces a serious bias that systematically tends toward underestimating occupational health risk. This bias is called the Healthy Worker Effect (HWE) and is based on the observation that the mortality ratios for all diseases at all ages of employed individuals are approximately 25% less than that of the general population. The HWE introduces a constant bias which requires the modification of common epidemiological methods for detecting occupational hazards. Previous occupational health studies need to be reevaluated to assess whether or not their results are distorted because of HWE.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada

    T. Sterling & J. Weinkam

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  1. T. Sterling
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  1. US West Advanced Technologies, Englewood, Colorado, USA

    Louis A. Cox Jr.

  2. University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA

    Paolo F. Ricci

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Sterling, T., Weinkam, J. (1990). The Healthy Worker Effect: The Need to Reevaluate a Broad Spectrum of Occupational Risks. In: Cox, L.A., Ricci, P.F. (eds) New Risks: Issues and Management. Advances in Risk Analysis, vol 6. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0759-2_63

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0759-2_63

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