photographist

“Constances is the name given to the group of 200,000 people who have just been financed in a huge loan as part of future investments. It took ten years for this project to be implemented and designated a research infrastructure. We put this population-representative group in place in order to create a tool which could be used to develop epidemiological research. As epidemiologists, investigations are our tools. It is a collective commitment by volunteers – citizens, members of the population – to give us a great deal of data about their lives, and in return we make all this data available to the research community in order to share them and make advances in public health. One of the scientific domains developed through this infrastructure relates to the effects of professional exposure – chemical, mechanical or organisational – on health and ageing.

Postponing the age of retirement will only be possible if we adapt posts to senior citizens. If not, their retirement will clearly be very difficult. We have noticed that people exposed to particularly difficult situations in their professional life declare that they perceive themselves to be in much better health after they retire than before – and this improvement in perceived health is felt up to ten years after retirement. This is a very important indicator because it determines healthcare and the great extent to which it is linked to mortality. Social epidemiology is interested in the social etiology of illness; it aims to explain why there are social inequalities in health. When a person (or a population) smokes or is obese, it does not only implicate the individual, but also society. It is important to take this into account in terms of public health and prevention."

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