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Provides information on a study that examined the associations between occupational exposures and the risk of lung cancer in New Caledonia. Methodology of the study; Results and discussion on the study; Conclusion.

Objective: To test whether psychosocial factors at work are predictors of rates of sickness absence.Methods: The study population consisted of middle aged men and women employed by the French national electricity and gas company (EDF-GDF) in various occupations and followed up since 1989 by annual self administered questionnaires and independent data obtained from the medical and personnel departments of EDF-GDF. The 1995 questionnaire provided information about three psychosocial work factors: psychological demands, decision latitude, and social support at work. Sick-ness absence data were provided by the company's social security department. The occurrence of spells and days of absence in the 12 months after completion of the 1995 questionnaire was studied. Potential confounding variables were age, smoking, alcohol, and marital status, assessed in the 1995 questionnaire, and educational level and occupation, assessed from data provided by the personnel department. This study was restricted to the 12,555 subjects of the initial cohort who were still working and answered the self administered questionnaire in 1995.Results: Low levels of decision latitude were associated with more frequent and longer sickness absences among men and women. Low levels of social support at work increased the numbers of spells and days of absence among men only. These associations weakened after adjustment for potential confounding factors, but remained significant.Conclusion: The study indicates that psychosocial factors at work, especially decision latitude, are predictive of sickness absence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concordant results have been reported in several studies for the effects of job stress on cardiovascular disease, but the potential mechanisms of these effects have seldom been explored. The aim of this study was therefore to examine, in women and men, the cross sectional relations between psychosocial work variables (psychological demands, decision latitude, and social support) and cardiovascular risk factors (hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, diabetes, overweight, smoking, and alcohol consumption). The original cohort comprised 20,625 volunteers (men aged from 40 to 50 and women from 35 to 50) employed by the French Company Electricité De France-Gaz De France and followed up yearly since 1989. The study was restricted to the 13,226 volunteers in the cohort who were still working and answered a self administered questionnaire on psychosocial work factors in 1995. Data were based on replies to this questionnaire. Three psychosocial work environment exposure scores were used to assess psychological demands, decision latitude, and social support at work respectively. The main outcome measures were the prevalence of hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, and diabetes within the previous 12 months, overweight, smoking, and alcohol consumption. Psychosocial work factors were significantly associated with hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, overweight, smoking, and alcohol consumption, but not with diabetes. In men, low decision latitude was associated with hypertension, high decision latitude and high social support with overweight, low decision latitude with alcohol consumption. Moreover, the risk of hyperlipidaemia increased in men exposed to both high psychological demands and low social support. In women, low decision latitude was related to hyperlipidaemia, high psychological demands with overweight, high psychological demands and high decision latitude with smoking, and low social support with alcohol consumption. These cross sectional results underline the potential effects of psychosocial work characteristics on cardiovascular risk factors and the differences between the effects of job stress in men and women, and confirm the direct mechanisms (through physiological variables) and indirect mechanisms (through behavioural risk factors) potentially involved in the relation between psychosocial work characteristics and cardiovascular disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]