ABSTRACT
Occupational diseases, including cancers, remain a relatively neglected research and policy priority for researchers from the sciences and social sciences despite their public health importance. This chapter describes the toll taken by occupational cancer primarily in the UK and examines how different types of evidence are and have been weighted in the contested policy process to address that toll. Recognition of occupationally caused and related cancers and estimating occupational cancer burdens has proved difficult in the UK but should not have constrained some prevention interventions. The terrain is highly contested, not simply in terms of numbers but also in terms of diagnosis and state listing of the diseases. The role of groups such as employers, scientists, politicians, regulators, trade unions, and workers in the process is explored. Worker testimony on and concern about occupational cancers has often been ignored but form an important part of some initiatives to prevent such diseases. A case study on occupational cancer and nightshift work is used, drawing on UK and European research and policy responses, to illustrate the complex competing interests and highlight the different responses within and beyond the UK to occupational cancer recognition and prevention. This chapter examines why this is and what is being done to address the neglect. Using research
from World Health Organization (WHO) bodies and academic institutions, trade unions, and civil society bodies at an international and UK level have begun to work out preventative strategies to address the social, human, and economic costs of occupational cancers.
