Exposure to occupational health risks (severity of working conditions)

As for any living being, people develop their personalities and evolve by interacting with their environment. Gainful employment constitutes a determining factor of this interaction since, being a source of fulfilment but also of stress, it can have an enduring effect on the physical and mental health of an individual. The pathogenic nature of work is legally acknowledged through concepts of professional hazards and, more recently, of difficult working conditions. Closely linked to changes in working practices, it is amongst the current issues arising from the dialectics concerning retirement and the improvement of working conditions. While the difficulty of working conditions is legally linked to the ending of working life and life expectancy, we should now move on from this approach. Blending the notions of health, wellbeing and hardship at work, this notion displays above all an evolution in the way of conceiving the protection of the working individual. Further deliberation needs to be given to definition, prevention and penalties in the light of accompanying financial and human considerations. A protean notion, both subjective and multidisciplinary, the difficulty of working conditions should be approached independently and requires the coordinated intervention of a number of actors, with the employer and employee at the centre.