New York women more likely to find work a “pain in the neck”

If you are a woman, according to a new study you are more likely than your male coworkers to suffer from work-related neck pain.  You may also be more deeply affected by workplace stress than the men at your workplace, claim the study’s authors.

 

This information comes from a thesis at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, which attempts to examine why muscle and joint pain – especially neck pain – is more of a problem for women than for men.  Researchers decided to focus on occupations that did not involve heavy lifting or assembly-line work, as they believed that looking at lower-impact jobs (for example, computer users) would offer more clues than jobs already known to cause physical problems.

 

Researchers expected to find that men and women suffer from pain at about the same rate, but they were surprised to find that women developed neck pain more often than their male counterparts.  They believe that psychosocial factors play into these numbers, and theorize that workplace pressures may affect women more acutely than men, contributing to higher reported incidents of neck pain.

 

Why men are less likely to suffer from workplace stress that contributes to neck pain is not known at this time.  Researchers believe that other factors affect the prevalence of neck pain in men.

 

• If you suffer from any on-the-job injury that affects your ability to work, you may be eligible for New York workers’ compensation.  Please contact our White Plains office today to find out if we can help you.