Obesity, tobacco, hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes, the main causes of more than 17 million deaths by infarction in the world, now add to this list loosing or working precarious jobs.
Though there is no significant research on this issue, Dr Mauricio Torres, specialized in occupational health and president of the Health Policies International Association, in Colombia, admitted that “a precarious job or the loss of a job constitute social determiners that generate health problems, especially mental, but also physical, with possible clinical manifestations of cardiovascular nature.”
The loss of a job and the “limited salaries that most of workers receive, especially in Colombia, lead to an unhealthy diet loaded with fat and sugar, and the long hours discourage them from exercising, putting them at risk”, Torres said. “A severe work policy is required to overcome the poor action towards insuring the formal economy population for professional risks. Also a National policy of work health is required, to cover workers in the formal and informal sectors, aiming at better work environments, with dignified and decent work”, he asserted.
He specified that work policies should promote healthy diets, physical activity, both at work and at home, and influence on the quality of work, that contribute to overcome the precarious present environment, basically due to instability, lack of social protection, poor salaries and high pressure at work, that include permanent fear and stress for the impending loss of work, both fatally affecting the cardiovascular system.
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