Long working hours 'health risk'

Working long hours can greatly increase the risk of suffering injury or illness, a study says.

Workers who do overtime were 61% more likely to become hurt or ill, once factors such as age and gender were taken into account.

And working more than 12 hours a day raised the risk by more than a third, the University of Massachusetts found.

A 60-hour week carried a 23% greater risk, the study of US records from 110,236 employment periods found.

The study looked at data from 1987 to 2000. An employment period relates to the time a person spent at one firm. Counting this way meant some individuals might have been covered by the research more than once.

Report co-author Allard Dembe said risk was not necessarily associated with how hazardous the job was.

"The results of this study suggest that jobs with long working hours are not more risky merely because they are concentrated in inherently hazardous industries or occupations.

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