Cancer-survivors not hired easily, finds study

Amsterdam, February 18: Cancerdefine survivors are assumed to have worn out fighting the deadly disease; they are not considered fit for regular jobs.

According to a new study, survivors of cancerdefine are more likely to remain unemployed than people who do not have any serious medical problems.

“Many cancer survivors want and are able to return to work after diagnosis and treatment,” said the authors in the report published in Feb. 18 issue of the ‘Journal of the American Medical Association.’ But on analyzing results of 36 previous studies from the United States, Europe, and five other countries, they found that after being hit by cancer once, getting back on the professional front becomes difficult for most survivors.

The researchers looked at information on 177,969 people, including 20,366 cancer survivors and 157,603 healthy people. Cancer survivors were 1.37 times more likely than their healthy counterparts, to remain unemployed.

"Cancer survivorship is associated with unemployment," said lead researcher Angela de Boer, an assistant professor at the Coronel Institute of Occupation Health at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam.

"Unemployment was higher in survivors of breast cancer, gastrointestinal cancer and cancers of the female reproductive organs, but unemployment rates were not higher for survivors of blood cancers, prostate cancers or testis cancers compared to controls," she added.

Physical limitations or cancer-related symptoms are the most probable reasons for such people’s difficulties in finding jobs. Plus, the horrors of a paid sick leave, if any treatment is required again, also keep employers away from hiring cancer-survivors.

“Cancer used to be a disease that occurred after you retired, because that’s when you were diagnosed,” said Cathy J. Bradley, a health economist at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center who has studied employment among cancer patients. “Now patients are getting that diagnosis early on, which is a good thing. . . .But I don’t think they or their employers are prepared for the tradeoff, which is that someone may be out of work for a long time.”

Voluntary unemployment among cancer survivors is unlikely believe the authors. “Employment outcomes can be improved with innovations in treatment and with clinical and supportive services aimed at better management of symptoms, rehabilitation, and accommodation for disabilities,” they said.