Workplace Injuries Rise Following Change to Daylight Savings

Two separate studies, conducted by Christopher Barnes and David Wagner, found that the March switch to daylight savings time resulted in 40 minutes less sleep for American workers, a 5.7 percent increase in workplace injuries and nearly 68 percent more work days lost to injuries.

When clocks were turn back an hour in November there was a change in workplace accident patterns and sleep loss.

The Sleep-Safety Link

Losing one hour of sleep can make a difference. According to Barnes, "Studies have shown that lost sleep causes attention levels to drop off," he said, and stated that the impact could be greatest in jobs where one has to pay attention to detail.

Past research supports the above findings.  A University of British Columbia study found that the Monday morning after the daylight saving time change there was an 8 percent increase risk of accidents in Canada.  Another study that used information from the U. S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, found that sleep deprivation as the most likely cause of a 17 percent increase in accidents on the Monday following the time change.

Barnes pointed out that it is common for people to complain about how tired they are when they lose sleep. When you are used to events occurring at the same time, and then suddenly that schedule is changed it can have adverse effects.    

"Their internal clocks need some recovery time for these kind of disruptions," Wagner said.
Barnes stated that people think that 1 hour of sleep lost is not going to affect them in a large way because it’s only 1 hour.  If they do have an accident or make a mistake, they are not going to attribute it to sleep loss.

While their study focused on physical accidents, Barnes and Wagner said a logical extension could include mistakes in the office or workplace, such as transposing figures on a spreadsheet or filling the wrong prescription in a pharmacy.

Other Factors

Barnes and Wagner used figures from the American Time Use Survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which included more than 14,000 interviews. While analyzing those figure they concluded that people lost an average of 40 minutes of sleep following the change to daylight saving time and there was a jump in workplace accidents following the time change.

The researcher looked at all Mondays in a year and allowed for seasonal effects and other factors. For example, in parts of the U.S. like Michigan and Minnesota there is snow in March as a result the snow would have been a contributing factor to the increase in accidents than the time change.  However, the results clearly show that sleep does have a profound effect upon human behavior and lack of sleep can have significant and serious results, they said.

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Posted by: suhujitha on 0000-00-00 00:00:00

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