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t's official—work is ruining our health. According to the disturbing results of a survey published last month by the British Heart Foundation, more than one in three men believe their health is being damaged because their jobs are becoming more intensive.
Researchers quizzed almost 700 men and women in a bid to establish just how the stress and strain of work affected their wellbeing. Nearly half said they take fewer breaks now than two years ago and rarely had more than 30 minutes for lunch.
Many of the men who answered said they had put on weight or felt tired and irritable because the pressures of work cut into their social lives. The findings were used to launch a major initiative to encourage all adults to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Experts hope to shock more people into shaking off their sedentary habits in a bid to reduce their risk of developing life-threatening illnesses.
But just how serious are the health risks to staff in the haulage sector and how can an industry where many players are battling to stay in the game accommodate the kind of changes needed to improve well-being?
Some companies' abilities to survive may actually depend upon them instigating such changes. The cost to industry from sickness is staggering—.t5bn a year from back pain alone—and many big organisations have found prevention is better than finding a cure.
Under the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) companies can face an unlimited fine for the most serious offences if they fail to safeguard the health of their staff properly.
In addition, there is a growing tendency for litigation, with staff claiming their health has suffered because of their employer's inaction and suing them for damages.
Afflictions
The range of possible work-related afflictions and illnesses is enormous. In haulage, health problems are just as likely to affect office staff as those out on the road. The British Heart Foundation study, for example, found women and white-collar workers were particularly prone to sickness through pressures of work.
But its the potential consequences of illness among truck drivers which can be so devastating. This was graphically demonstrated earlier this year when a woman narrowly avoided a disaster by steering a runaway truck onto the hard shoulder of the motorway after her husband collapsed at the wheel.
Thirty-year-old Richard Beck, from Blackburn, was travelling along the M6 near the M4z turn-off with his wife and their three children when he complained of a pain in his head. Seconds later he collapsed at the wheel and was later pronounced dead at Birmingham's Harthill Hospital.
Medical research from several sources has proved truck drivers are at a greater risk than many other professions of developing some potentially fatal diseases.
D The most serious of these is coronary heart disease. Nearly 140,000 people die in Britain every year from heart attacks and because of the nature of their work and their social class, truck drivers fall into the high-risk category. Studies published in leading medical journals have identified smoking, diet and stress as major risk factors for drivers. And problems are exacerbated by the fact that many also work long shifts, tend to eat high-fat takeaway food and have irregular mealtimes.
Eating habits Last year, researchers from Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh studied drivers' eating habits and found most snacked frequently throughout the day, buying their treats from garage kiosks and truckstops. As part of the Drivers were asked why they did not eat fresh fruit: they blamed cost and poor availability. The study concluded that roadside catering and retailing industries should do more to supply healthy snacks to drivers.
The Government has set itself the target of reducing deaths from heart disease and stroke-related illnesses by at least a third in people aged under 65 between now and 2010.
But for such an improvement in haulage, there must be a big change in the way drivers and their employers approach the issues of diet, stress and workload.
Doctors advise that prevention of heart disease requires a diet low in fat and high in fresh fruit and vegetables, regular aerobic exercise and frequent checks on blood pressure. The British Heart Foundation says this means cutting down on foods with high levels of saturated fats—common truckstop fare such as sausages, pies, hamburgers and chips—because they increase cholesterol levels in the blood and silt up the arteries to the heart.
It is advisable to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. These provide vital antioxidants which stop the arteries from becoming blocked. Exercise is also vital— around 30 minutes a day of brisk walking, running, cycling or swimming, for example.
The foundation's guidance states: "This pumps oxygen-rich blood around the body and makes the heart grow stronger. That pump more blood with each beat, meaning it does not have to work so hard."
Yet healthy eating and regular exercise are almost completely at odds with the nature of a driver's work. Truckstop catering has traditionally focused on high-fat, low-protein foods that are cheap but filling, while regular exercise is difficult for drivers who spend hours at a time on the road.
Stress too can be a risk factor for raised blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. In 0997, American researchers found a substantial increase in psychological distress among parcel delivery drivers carrying out dozens of drops a day. But it is almost certainly a problem too for those running haulage companies at a time when costs continue to soar.
The Health and Safety Executive estimates that half a million people a year suffer from stress-related ill health caused or aggravated by work. Problems triggered by long hours, shift work, bullying at work and job insecurity are thought to cost around six million working days a year.
Although there is no specific legislation governing control of stress in the workplace, employers have a responsibility—under their duty of care within the contract of employment—to ensure the health, safety and welfare of their workers. If their failure to honour those duties causes work-related stress, their employees can sue them for negligence in the County Court or the High Court.
Liz Justice, spokeswoman for the Health and Safety Executive, says around 5,000 companies are prosecuted every year for breaches of all kinds under the Health and Safety at Work Act.
One of the H SE's main objectives at the moment is to reduce accidents in the haulage industry. "We are prosecuting one haulage firm at the moment because a driver was killed when he was sheeting his lorry. He was on his own and fell nine feet to the ground and died," Justice says.
The employer is being taken to court because, the HSE says, the driver should not have been left to sheet the trailer on his own. Proper training for drivers and other operatives is generally lacking in the transport sector, the H SE says. It is currently one year into a major three-year campaign to cut accidents in the industry. It says the most common accident involving workplace transport is people being hit or run over One in four fatalities is due to vehicles reversing.
Under the terms of the Health and Safety at Work Act, firms \
have to carry out an assessment of the risks to each group of employees. In haulage, one of the largest single risks is back injuries, ranging from niggling pain to permanent musculoskeletal problems.
There are half-a-million work-related back conditions reported every year, according to the National Back Pain Association, costing over too million days in sickness absence.
Problems can arise from simply not providing office staff with proper seating. Increasing numbers of office workers are suffering back, neck and wrist problems from sitting at a desk all day and badly designed furniture is one of the reasons.
Frequent breaks
The association advises: "Make sure your chair is at the correct height in relation to your desk, try putting a small cushion at the small of your back and take frequent breaks."
But drivers too develop back problems. "We have done some work on whole body vibration, which can be a big problem if the driver's seat is not adjusted properly," says justice. "Often lorry drivers complain of bad backs because of this."
Manual handling remains a prime source of back problems, despite regulations introduced in 1992 placing a duty on employers to reduce the risk of injury to staff. New guidance was issued by the HS E last November to try to crack down on a problem that still affects the health of an estimated 6 oo,000 people in Britain.
Hazards using computers are also a concern for haulage bosses. The most common health problems for users are fatigue and aches and pains in the shoulders and neck.
Health and safety regulations state firms must ensure staff workstations are up to scratch and pay for eye tests for staff who request them. If they need special spectacles, the company must pay.
The HSE is planning to launch a consultation document in June on smoking in the workplace. Employers are currently encour
aged to provide smoking and non-smoking rest rooms, but there is no industry code of practice yet, largely because smoking is a lifestyle issue as much as a workplace issue.
Perhaps one of the most under-explored areas of potential long-term health problems for haulage workers is inhalation of fumes. Although the use and disposal of toxic substances and chemicals is governed by CoS H H —Control of Substances Hazardous to Health—there is little to protect drivers from the effects of daily contact with diesel exhaust fumes.
One study carried out in the US last year found truck drivers were to times more at risk of developing lung cancer over their working life from diesel exhaust fumes—a suspected carcinogen—than the general population.
Further research is needed to confirm the risk in British drivers. But the worst case would be that the lifeblood of the haulage industry, the fuel which keeps the sector on the move, is endangering drivers' lives by increasing their risks of contracting a frequently fatal disease.