Research into financial impact of work-related asthma

New research in the journal Thorax has suggested the financial impact of asthma brought on by working conditions in the UK could be up to £135mn a year. According to Irwin Mitchell’s David Johnston-Keay, the team behind the research, which included specialists from the University of Birmingham, measured the costs by considering both the impact on NHS and benefit systems, as well as lost income and productivity. It was also found around 3000 new cases of occupational asthma are diagnosed in the UK annually, which supports previous estimates given by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE).