The effect of workplace health services on sex-specific morbidity rates: A note of warning about a possible artefact in apparent female excess morbidity

It is suggested that the excess morbidity of women may be accounted for by the greater availability to men of treatment at the place of work, for example by an occupational health nurse, which would diminish their rates of attendance in the official health system, and would also diminish the duration and hence prevalence of minor ailments. This would explain the pattern of female excess morbidity occuring exclusively at lower levels of morbidity and explicable predominantly by excess morbidity in women who do not work. Some evidence exists to support this hypothesis but it remains essentially speculative. The purpose of this paper is to warn that it must be taken into account when studying female excess morbidity.