Women, work and cancer – why is the link not being recognized?
Cancer is the leading cause of work-related mortalities in the European Union (EU) and is responsible for 100,000 unnecessary deaths a year. Yet most research and policy on its causes and prevention still assume that it is mainly men who are affected, even though an increasing proportion of the victims are now women. The need to shift research priorities and better address workplace prevention to reflect changing occupational risks was the subject of an ETUI conference in Brussels in early December.
Tony Musu, senior research at the ETUI, said that workplace cancer was often ‘invisible,’ and workplace cancer among women was particularly invisible. Tackling the problem required concerted action, as over 80% of exposure at work is caused by 50 different carcinogenic agents. He pointed to the enormous cost of inaction, with research presented in a new book from the ETUI estimating that work-related cancers costs between €270 and €610 billion a year in the EU-28.