Work-Related Stress May Raise Heart Disease & Stroke Risks

Workplace factors that increase disease risks range from job stress to exposures to air and noise pollution. Such factors exacerbate existing risk factors for heart attack and stroke   Sara Luckhaupt, from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Georgia, USA), and colleagues compiled data from the 2008-2012 National Health Interview Survey in an aim to estimate the prevalence of a history of coronary heart disease or stroke (CHD/stroke) among adults ages 65 years and younger by selected characteristics, employment status, occupation category, and industry of employment. Data analysis revealed that 1.9% of employed adults ages 55 years and younger reported a history of CHD/stroke, compared with 2.5% of unemployed adults looking for work, and 6.3% of adults not in the labor force (such as unemployed adults who stopped looking for work, homemakers, students, retired persons, and disabled persons). Workers employed in service and blue collar occupations were more likely than those in white collar occupations to report a history of CHD/stroke. The study authors refer to the Total Worker Health program, which integrates occupational safety and health protection with health promotion, submitting that these at-risk workers may “especially benefit from a Total Worker Health approach to reducing the risk for [coronary heart disease or] stroke.”