Twenty year development of occupational diseases in the Czech Republic: medical and geographical aspects.

Abstract

The study analysed occupational diseases in the Czech Republic from the viewpoint of occupational medicine and medical geography. It used a dataset consisting of 32,646 cases of occupational diseases reported during the period of 1994-2013. The descriptive part of the study analysed occupational diseases according to their spatial distribution, occurrence in different branches of economic activities, employees' gender, and according to chapters of the List of occupational diseases. The incidence of occupational diseases showed an overall decreasing trend, which can be related to several factors--transformation of the national economy (shift from heavy industry to manufacturing industry and services), an improvement in access to occupational healthcare services, increased responsibility of employers for safe working conditions, but also a concealment of health problems by employees for fear of losing job. An exception to the decreasing trend is the automotive industry, in which the upward trend in occupational diseases occurrence was noted. The analytical part of the study focused on the relation between unemployment and occupational diseases incidence rates in different regions of the Czech Republic. In most regions, a statistically significant inverse association was shown between the rate of unemployment and occupational disease incidence. The situation is described in more detail for the Moravia-Silesia and Ustí nad Labem Regions and the Capital City of Prague, wherein a statistically significant inverse association was shown between the rate of unemployment and occupational disease incidence. The theory of marginal utility can explain the phenomenon. To certain degree of health problems, employees tend to prefer employment stability, especially if the unemployment is on rise in their region. On the other hand, if losing their job, they often try to claim benefits connected with occupational diseases.