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Work Situation After Breast Cancer

It is unclear whether a breast cancer diagnosis adversely affects work experience. Maunsell et al. (p. 1813) looked for evidence of discrimination at work, defined as negative or involuntary changes in employment situation, associated with breast cancer in a population-based retrospective cohort study conducted in Quebec, Canada. Three years after being diagnosed, slightly more breast cancer survivors (21%) than women in the comparison group (15%) were unemployed, although most women who were not working (84% of survivors and 76% of women in the comparison group) said that the decision to stop working was their own. Among women still employed, no deterioration in working conditions was observed in either group. The authors suggest that, at least for women in health and social systems where health insurance is independent of employment such as in Canada, women diagnosed with breast cancer seldom experience discrimination in the work place.