Work Stress as a Risk Factor for Cardiovascular Disease

The role of psychosocial work stress as a risk factor for chronic disease has been the subject of considerable debate. Many researchers argue in support of a causal connection while others remain skeptical and have argued that the effect on specific health conditions is either negligible or confounded. This review of evidence from over 600,000 men and women from 27 cohort studies in Europe, the USA and Japan suggests that work stressors, such as job strain and long working hours, are associated with a moderately elevated risk of incident coronary heart disease and stroke. The excess risk for exposed individuals is 10-40 % compared with those free of such stressors. Differences between men and women, younger versus older employees and workers from different socioeconomic backgrounds appear to be small, indicating that the association is robust. Meta-analyses of a wider range of health outcomes show additionally an association between work stress and type 2 diabetes, though not with common cancers or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, suggesting outcome specificity. Few studies have addressed whether mitigation of work stressors would reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. In view of the limited interventional evidence on benefits, harms and cost-effectiveness, definitive recommendations have not been made (e.g. by the US Preventive Services Taskforce) for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease via workplace stress reduction. Nevertheless, governments are already launching healthy workplace campaigns, and preventing excessive work stress is a legal obligation in several countries. Promoting awareness of the link between stress and health among both employers and workers is an important component of workplace health promotion

Economic uncertainty and suicide in the United States

Previous studies have found an association between recessions and increased rates of suicide. In the present study we widened the focus to examine the association between economic uncertainty and suicides. We used monthly suicide data from the US at the State level from 2000 to 2017 and combined them with the monthly economic uncertainty index. We followed a panel data econometric approach to study the association between economic uncertainty and suicide, controlling for unemployment and other indicators. Economic uncertainty is positively associated with suicide when controlling for unemployment [coeff: 8.026; 95% CI: 3.692–12.360] or for a wider range of economic and demographic characteristics [coeff: 7.478; 95% CI: 3.333–11.623]. An increase in the uncertainty index by one percent is associated with an additional 11–24.4 additional monthly suicides in the US. Economic uncertainty is likely to act as a trigger, which underlines the impulsive nature of some suicides. This highlights the importance of providing access to suicide prevention interventions (e.g. hotlines) during periods of economic uncertainty

Economic uncertainty and cardiovascular disease mortality

Previous studies have found a link between economic conditions, such as recessions and unemployment, and cardiovascular disease as well as other health outcomes. More recent research argues that economic uncertainty—independently of unemployment—can affect health outcomes. Using data from England and Wales, we study the association between fluctuations in economic uncertainty and cardiovascular disease mortality in the short term for the period 2001–2019. Controlling for several economic indicators (including unemployment), we find that economic uncertainty alone is strongly associated with deaths attributed to diseases of the circulatory system, ischemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease. Our findings highlight the short-term link between economic conditions and cardiovascular health and reveal yet another health outcome that is associated with uncertainty

Workplace exposure to passive smoking and risk of cardiovascular disease: summary of epidemiologic studies.

We reviewed the published epidemiologic studies addressing the relationship between workplace exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and cardiovascular disease risk in three case-control studies and three cohort studies. Although the point estimates of risk for cardiovascular disease exceeded 1.0 in five of six studies, none of the relative risks was statistically significant because of the small number of cardiovascular end points occurring in individual studies. In common with most epidemiologic investigations of the health risks of ETS, none of the workplace studies included independent biochemical validation of ETS exposure. In contrast to the evidence on increased cardiovascular disease risk from exposure to spousal ETS, studies of ETS exposure in the workplace are still sparse and inconclusive. Conversely, there is no biologically plausible reason to believe that the hazards of ETS exposure that have been demonstrated in the home should not also apply to the workplace

The development of a bridging social capital questionnaire for use in population health research

AbstractBridging social capital is defined as the connections between individuals who are dissimilar with respect to socioeconomic and other characteristics. There is an important gap in the literature related to its measurement. We describe the development and validation of a questionnaire to measure bridging social capital. We focused the development of the questionnaire to be suitable for use in Latino immigrant populations in the U.S. The structure of the questionnaire comprised the following: Socialization in the job place (5 items); Membership in community activities (16 items); Participation in community activities (5 items); Contact with similar/different people (7 items); Assistance (17 items); Trust of institutions, corporations and other people(14 items); and Trust of intimate people (3 items). First, we used focus groups (N=17 participants) to establish content validity with an inductive thematic analysis to identify themes and subthemes. Changes were made to the questionnaire based on difficulty, redundancy, length and semantic equivalence. Second, we analyzed the questionnaire's psychometric properties (N=138). We tested internal consistency with Cronbach alpha and construct validity with a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) for each sub-scale to test theoretical unity; discriminant validity to observe differences between participants from high and low SES backgrounds and different language; and content validity with an independent expert panel. Cronbach alphas ranged from 0.80 (Assistance) to 0.92 (Trust). CFA results indicated that CFI and TLI were higher than 0.90 in almost all the scales, with high factor loadings. The Wilcoxon tests indicated that there were statistically significant mean differences between SES and language groups (p<0.00). The independent expert panel determined that the questionnaire had good content validity. This is the first demonstration of a psychometrically validated questionnaire to measure bridging social capital in an immigrant population in the United States. Our questionnaire may be suitable for further refinement and adaptation to other immigrant groups in different countries

Timing of Spermarche and Menarche are Associated with Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior Among Korean Adolescents

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the timing of menarche and spermarche and their associations with physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB) after controlling for body mass index (BMI). METHODS: Multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted to determine whether the timing of menarche in girls and spermarche in boys is associated with PA and SB independent of BMI in a nationally representative sample of Korean adolescents (13–18 years; N = 74,186). RESULTS: After controlling for age, family economic status, and BMI, early timing of spermarche among boys was associated with a higher likelihood of engaging in PA and a lower likelihood of engaging in SB for < 2 hours during weekdays. By contrast, boys with late timing of spermarche were less likely to engage in PA and more likely to engage in SB for < 2 hours. Among girls, early or late timing of menarche was associated with a higher likelihood of engaging in PA and a lower likelihood of engaging in SB. CONCLUSION: Timing of menarche in girls and spermarche in boys could be a marker for PA and SB among Korean adolescents. To promote PA and discourage SB among Korean adolescents, school-based, grade-specific interventions can be tailored by the absence or presence of menarche/spermarche

Association between religious service attendance and lower suicide rates among US women

IMPORTANCE: Previous studies have linked suicide risk with religious participation, but the majority have used ecologic, cross-sectional, or case-control data. OBJECTIVE: To examine the longitudinal association between religious service at tendance and suicide and the joint associations of suicide with service attendance and religious affiliation. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: We evaluated associations between religious service attendance and suicide from 1996 through June 2010 in a large, long-term prospective cohort, the Nurses' Health Study, in an analysis that included 89 708 women. Religious service attendance was self-reported in 1992 and 1996. Data analysis was conducted from 1996 through 2010. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to examine the association between religious service attendance and suicide, adjusting for demographic covariates, lifestyle factors, medical history, depressive symptoms, and social integration measures. We performed sensitivity analyses to examine the influence of unmeasured confounding. RESULTS: Among 89 708 women aged 30 to 55 years who participated in the Nurses' Health Study, attendance at religious services once per week or more was associated with an approximately 5-fold lower rate of suicide compared with never attending religious services (hazard ratio, 0.16; 95% CI, 0.06-0.46). Service attendance once or more per week vs less frequent attendance was associated with a hazard ratio of 0.05 (95% CI, 0.006-0.48) for Catholics but only 0.34 (95% CI, 0.10-1.10) for Protestants (P = .05 for heterogeneity). Results were robust in sensitivity analysis and to exclusions of persons who were previously depressed or had a history of cancer or cardiovascular disease. There was evidence that social integration, depressive symptoms, and alcohol consumption partially mediated the association among those occasionally attending services, but not for those attending frequently. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: In this cohort of US women, frequent religious service attendance was associated with a significantly lower rate of suicide

Multi-level, cross-sectional study of workplace social capital and smoking among Japanese employees

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Social capital is hypothesized to be relevant to health promotion, and the association between community social capital and cigarette smoking has been examined. Individual-level social capital has been found to be associated with smoking cessation, but evidence remains sparse on the contextual effect of social capital and smoking. Further, evidence remains sparse on the association between smoking and social capital in the workplace, where people are spending an increasing portion of their daily lives. We examined the association between workplace social capital and smoking status among Japanese private sector employees.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We employed a two-stage stratified random sampling procedure. Of the total of 1,800 subjects in 60 companies, 1,171 (men/women; 834/337) employees (65.1%) were identified from 46 companies in Okayama in 2007. Workplace social capital was assessed in two dimensions; trust and reciprocity. Company-level social capital was based on inquiring about employee perceptions of trust and reciprocity among co-workers, and then aggregating their responses in order to calculate the proportion of workers reporting mistrust and lack of reciprocity. Multilevel logistic regression analysis was conducted using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods to explore whether individual- and company-level social capital was associated with smoking. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% credible intervals (CIs) for current smoking were obtained.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Overall, 33.3% of the subjects smoked currently. There was no relationship between individual-level mistrust of others and smoking status. By contrast, one-standard deviation change in company-level mistrust was associated with higher odds of smoking (OR: 1.25, 95% CI: 1.06-1.46) even after controlling for individual-level mistrust, sex, age, occupation, educational attainment, alcohol use, physical activity, body mass index, and chronic diseases. No clear associations were found between lack of reciprocity and smoking both at the individual- and company-level.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Company-level mistrust is associated with higher likelihood of smoking among Japanese employees, while individual perceptions of mistrust were not associated. The link between lack of reciprocity and smoking was not supported either at the individual- or company-level. Further studies are warranted to examine the possible link between company-level trust and smoking cessation in the Japanese workplace.</p

Income inequality and depressive symptoms in South Africa: A longitudinal analysis of the National Income Dynamics Study

Research suggests that income inequality may detrimentally affect mental health. We examined the relationship between district-level income inequality and depressive symptoms among individuals in South Africa—one of the most unequal countries in the world—using longitudinal data from Wave 1 (2008) and Wave 3 (2012) of the National Income Dynamics Study. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Center for Epidemiological Studies of Depression Short Form while district Gini coefficients were estimated from census and survey sources. Age, African population group, being single, being female, and having lower household income were independently associated with higher depressive symptoms. However, in longitudinal, fixed-effects regression models controlling for several factors, district-level Gini coefficients were not significantly associated with depressive symptoms scores. Our results do not support the hypothesis of a causal link between income inequality and depressive symptoms in the short-run. Possible explanations include the high underlying levels of inequality in all districts, or potential lags in the effect of inequality on depression