English version - Fit for Work Europe

Introduction
12
2.3
International
context
2.4
Objectives
of the study
To raise awareness of the disability caused by MSDs the United Nations declared the years
2000 to 2010 The Bone and Joint Decade. Many countries, including Japan, have since
acknowledged the increasing prevalence of MSDs and the rising costs of those conditions.
For example, over 107 million adults in the United States (US) reported MSDs in 2005 (United
States Bone and Joint Decade, 2008). Similarly, chronic musculoskeletal pain is estimated to
affect 100 million people in Europe (Veale, Woolf and Carr, 2008).
Many of individuals living with MSDs are of working age. In the European Union (EU) MSDs
affect more than 40 million workers and account for about half of all work-related disorders
(European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), 2007), representing an estimated cost to society
of between 0.5 and 2.0 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) (Cammarota, 2005). The
European Commission estimates that MSDs account for 49.9 per cent of all absences from
work lasting three days or longer and for 60 per cent of permanent work incapacity (European
Agency for Safety and Health at Work, 2007).
Increasing awareness of the burden of MSDs on economies and societies has led to the
proposal of the EU directive on MSDs, forthcoming in 2012. 1 Unlike other recent EU directives,
this most recent one focuses primarily on MSD-related workplace risk, taking into account
individual or psychological factors as well as the social milieu in which individuals live their lives,
where work plays a large part. In particular, the directive prescribes that psychosocial factors
(essentially stress) must be considered and assessed along with the ‘physical’ work-related ill
health. Such recommendation signifies a welcome cultural shift towards viewing patients as
workers and aiming at returning to work to become an ultimate outcome of treatment.
This report looks at Japan in this wider global context and assesses where Japan is doing
well and where it has challenges to confront. Appendix 3 compares Japan with other countries
across a range of labour market, welfare and health care systems indicators.
More specifically, this project has sought to address each of the following questions:
1. What is the impact of MSDs on employment and economic performance in Japan?
How is this likely to change in the context of future demographic, workforce and lifestyle
changes?
2. What is the relationship between work and MSDs? What impact do biological,
psychological and social factors, including workplace factors, have on MSDs?
1 See Health and Safety Executive http://www.hse.gov.uk/aboutus/europe/euronews/dossiers/msd.htm
Fit For Work? Musculoskeletal Disorders and the Japanese Labour Market