Monitoring trends in psychosocial and physical working conditions: Challenges and suggestions for the 21st century

Abstract

In work and health research, there is a lack of studies on prevalence of psychosocial (eg, quantitative demands, social relations) and physical (eg, physical activity, heavy lifting) working conditions among national employee populations - and their trends. [In the following, I shall not discuss the issue of trends of other exposures, such as chemical and dust exposures (1).] To my knowledge, in the recent decade, only a few studies have investigated this topic (2-8), and, in this issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health, such a rare study is published (9).