SHORT COMMUNICATION Disability retirement among former employees at the construction of the Great Belt Link H. Hannerz * , S. Spangenberg, F. Tu ¨chsen, K. Albertsen Department of Epidemiology and Surveillance, National Institute of Occupational Health, Lersø Parkalle ´ 105, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark Received 8 December 2003; received in revised form 24 June 2004; accepted 17 July 2004 Available online 19 December 2004 KEYWORDS Disability retirement; Long working hours; Heavy construction Summary Objective. To investigate incidences of disability retirement among men who had been employed at the construction of a large traffic link in Denmark, which involved long working hours and long distances between home and work place. Methods. Men aged 20–54 years at baseline who had been engaged in the construction of the Great Belt Link (nZ5882) were followed-up for disability retirements from 1996 to 2000. Age-standardized incidence ratios (SIR) were calculated and compared with those of other construction workers (nZ117,157). All economically active men in Denmark were used as the standard population. Results. The SIRs for the two groups were 2.29 (95% confidence intervals (CI): 1.95– 2.67) and 0.98 (95% CI: 0.93–1.03), respectively. Conclusions. The Great Belt construction workers had an elevated risk for disability retirement compared with other construction workers and with economically active men in general. Q 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Royal Institute of Public Health. Introduction The Danish construction industry was recently involved in the completion of two large, complex tunnel and bridge traffic links. One of them reaches across the Great Belt, connecting east and west Denmark, while the other provides a fixed link between Denmark and Sweden. A third large project, the construction of the Copenhagen Metro, is in progress, and a link across the Fehmarn Belt between Germany and Denmark is in the planning stage. One characteristic of this type of project is that they are too large to be manned completely by people who live in the vicinity. Recruitment must also include people who live far away from the construction sites. Such employees can choose to live in temporary camps or to commute long distances each working day. The recruitment of people who live far away would be difficult unless attractive work schedules were provided. Hence, a typical schedule for employees on the above construction projects was 7 days of intensive work (12 h/day) followed by 7 days off- duty. 1 Public Health (2005) 119, 301–304 0033-3506/$ - see front matter Q 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Royal Institute of Public Health. doi:10.1016/j.puhe.2004.07.007 * Corresponding author. Tel.: C45 3916 5460; fax: C45 3916 5201. E-mail address: hh@ami.dk (H. Hannerz).