

If any of these symptoms appear, it is important to contact your personal physician or occupational physician, or visit a healthcare facility immediately


Non-communicable diseases are not transmitted.
Can occur due to the:
➔Genetic background plays a significant role in most non-communicable diseases. Your genetic background refers to your DNA.
➔Some other diseases are caused by substances in your surrounding environment will be briefly mentioned here, but if you want more information, you can visit module 1.
Daily behaviors can cause or increase risk of a non-communicable disease.
This disease might not have been developed otherwise or might have developed later in your life.
In this unit, we are going to discuss the most common health behavior-resulted diseases that a municipal urban cleaner may face or may develop at some point of his/her life.
Cardiovascular diseases (heart diseases), are conditions that affect the heart and blood vessels.
We will discuss conditions that may
The conditions that can influence your health and increase the risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases are:
high blood pressure
hyperlipidemia
high blood sugar levels
Hypertension or high blood pressure
affects about one in three adults.
If hypertension remains untreated, it can increase the odds of suffering from:
Hyperlipidemia (or high blood lipids) refers to abnormally elevated levels of lipids in the blood (LDL, HDL, Cholesterol, Triglycerides – TG).
Make healthy choices to help keep these indicators under control.
If any of these symptoms appear, it is important to contact your personal physician or occupational physician, or visit a healthcare facility immediately
Anaemia has a set of common symptoms:
The most common type of anaemia is caused by iron deficiency. This can occur if you do not consume enough iron.
To tackle iron deficiency, you should eat more iron-rich foods and take iron supplements, if your doctor advises you to do so (see unit 4).
Diabetes affects about 1 in 10 people.
The common characteristic of diabetes is the inability of the body to control the levels of blood sugar. This can cause hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) or low blood sugar, which causes weakness, fainting, or more severe symptoms.
Uncontrolled or constantly high blood sugar levels can cause eye or foot problems, heart attack or stroke, kidney conditions, nerve damage, or cancer.
There is no cure for diabetes, but there are actions that you can take to control your blood sugar.
A healthy lifestyle (including healthy diet and sleep) and sticking to your advised medication (insulin for type 1, and other medication for type 2), are the first course of action to control diabetes.
By controlling your blood sugar, you can not only prevent the unfavorable consequences of diabetes, but can also prevent type 2 diabetes from occurring in the first place. Your doctor is responsible for guiding you and should be trusted!
Having excess weight may not have significant effects on your health at first, but it can certainly be a concern for the future.
Excess weight can negatively impact your daily work and your social life.
Having excess weight for your height is characterized as being overweight. If this weight is significantly higher, it is called obesity.
In Europe, about half of adults have excess body weight!
BMI (Body Mass Index) is a great tool to check if you are overweight or obese. You just need to know your weight and height. You can calculate your BMI using this online based tool: https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmi-m.htm
Obesity can increase the risk of a variety of diseases and conditions, namely:
High blood pressure, high cholesterol, LDL and triglycerides with low HDL, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, sleep apnea, mental illness, many types of cancer, and more.
Obesity can interfere with your daily activities and impact your social life.
While the consequences of obesity are numerous, you should remember that, in most cases, obesity is preventable with a proper diet and frequent physical activity.
Cancer, tumors, or neoplasms simply refer to diseases that can affect parts of your body (breast, lung, colon or rectum, skin,stomach, etc.) due to rapid abnormal growth and multiplication of your own cells. These growths can affect many bodily functions and potentially spread to other organs in your body. This spread is called metastasis, a common cause of death from cancer.
You might ask: how does your own cells lose control?
Minimizing exposure to this factors can reduce the chances of cancer!
How can we prevent or delay cancer?
A healthy lifestyle! This includes a healthy diet, exercising, avoiding abusing alcohol, avoiding exposure to pollution and radiation, getting immunized, and, most importantly, avoiding smoking.
What happens if I do get cancer?
An early diagnosis can not only prevent metastasis and save many years of your life, but can also allow you to treat this disease and live as long as everyone else! Treating the disease in later stages is more difficult. So, make sure to attend the regular check ups that the doctor advises you to do. Sreening tests for cancer are very important and some of them are: Pap test, mammography, colonoscopy, etc. Your doctor will advise you which you need to do and when.
Although this disease mostly appears in older age, early cigarette exposure can increase the chance of lung cancer appearing earlier in life.
For MUCs, occupational exposure (i.e. asbestos, diesel engine exhausts and air pollution) can also cause lung cancer.
Respiratory diseases are conditions that affect the organs that are involved in breathing. For more information on respiratory diseases visit page 23 of the supporting document.
For information regarding chronic kidney disease, visit page 24 of the supporting document.
For information regarding liver diseases visit page 24 of the supporting word document.
Remember that both chronic kidney disease and liver diseases can be prevented maintaining proper hygiene around your workplace, having a healthy lifestyle and doing regular screening!
Back pain is the most common musculoskeletal pain and can be caused by lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, or dragging heavy loads, doing repetitive tasks, crouching, remaining in a certain position for a while, and poor posture.
Other musculoskeletal disorders include:
For more information on musculoskeletal disorders please visit page 24 of the supporting document.
Mental health refers to our emotional, physiological, and social well-being.
Is speaking about your mental health at your workplace a taboo? NO!
You should never underestimate mental health’s importance.