The Nordic Occupational Skin Questionnaire (NOSQ-2002) was designed to study work-related skin diseases (SD) and work exposures causing SD. In Lifelines, the short version of the NOSQ was used (i.e. the 7 items focusing on SD).

Skin diseases(SD) are quite common in western countries. According to “Huidpatiënten Nederland”, an organisation that looks in SD in the Netherlands and tries to help people with those diseases, more than 1 million people in the Netherlands suffer from SD. Statistics Netherlands (CBS estimates this at 1,2 million people. SD are mostly related to work, owing its relation due to exposure to allergens and irritants in the workplace. Among this large amount of SD, chronic dermatosis affecting the hands is the most common, with hand eczema constituting 90%-95% of all occupational skin disease symptoms ¹⁾. These symptoms are mostly found in workers of jobs that involve manual labour, such as healthcare workers, hairdressers, car mechanics, and industrial workers like those working in food production, car manufacturing or those that work construction. To assess the health issue that SD form, a large review was done of different researches to combine data from 20 years and 15 different skin conditions. They found that these 15 skin conditions combined are the fourth leading cause of non-fatal disease burden on a global level ²⁾