Occupational safety: Eliminate three tier shift schedules

Occupational health has made vast improvements over the last several hundred years. Although work environments have evolved, long and varied hours still persist. Many occupations require positions to operate twenty four hours a day and seven days a week. This includes protective and health care fields, which have mandated shift work: law enforcement, hospitals, and a range of care givers. Studies on work schedules demonstrate a negative trend of characteristics with association to shift work. Shift Work Disorder (SWD) is a serious condition within these types of fields. SWD is a disorder which disrupts the body's circadian rhythm, disallowing a regular pattern of sleep. SWD has been associated with obesity, mood deterioration, metabolic syndrome, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. SWD increases the chance of mistakes on the job and the occurrence of road accidents. The prevalence of SWD is estimated to be between one and two percent in the overall population, including those people who do not perform shift work. Three tier shift schedules, in particular, are hazardous. These are shifts which include day, evening, and night shifts within each week. These schedules increase the risk for developing SWD. Studies show that a policy eliminating three tier shift schedules would greatly assist in the positive evolution of work conditions for employees. The benefits for employers in decreasing the number of unnecessary shift schedules and eliminating three tiered shift schedules would be to have safer work environments with more productive employees.