Job Strain and Coronary Heart Disease

Details

• Personal Author:
  Baker, Dean B. ; Choi B ; Dobson M ; Ko S ; Schnall P
• Description:
  The paper by Mika Kivimäki and colleagues includes two important errors. First, the population attributable risk of job strain is underestimated because the prevalence of job strain itself (15%) was underestimated. Kivimäki and colleagues report the prevalence of job strain in the WOLF-N/WOLF-F cohorts as 13-16%. However, in the original WOLF study, in which job strain was measured with the standard 11 items, it was 22-28%, similar to the average prevalence of 25% in 31 European countries. This discrepancy might have occurred because Kivimäki and colleagues harmonised job strain measures with fewer items across the 13 cohorts. Also, only three of the cohorts (COPSOQ-I, POLS, and HeSSup) were randomly selected from general working populations with participation rates of more than 50%; most of the others were recruited from white-collar organisations. The prevalence of job strain is generally lower in white-collar than in blue-collar occupations. Second, Kivimäki and colleagues do not make it clear that they examined only one, albeit important, work stressor (job strain) in relation to coronary heart disease (CHD). Job strain cannot be equated with "workplace stress". Several other important work stressors (long work hours, poor social support, and job insecurity) are reported to be associated with CHD, independent of job strain. Therefore Kivimäki and colleagues' statement that "our findings suggest that prevention of workplace stress might decrease incidence; however, this strategy would have a much smaller effect than would tackling of standard risk factors" is misleading because the issue of the overall effect of work stress on CHD is not appropriately addressed in their paper. This letter is in response to Job strain as a risk factor for coronary heart disease: a collaborative meta-analysis of individual participant data. Lancet. 2012 Oct; 380(9852):1491-1497https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60994-5. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Cardiovascular Diseases Cardiovascular System Epidemiology Occupational Health Safety Stress, Psychological
• Keywords:
  Cardiovascular Disease Job Stress Sociological Factors Worker Health Work Experience
• ISSN:
  0140-6736
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  California ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  381
• Issue:
  9865
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20056038
• Citation:
  Lancet 2013 Feb; 381(9865):448
• Contact Point Address:
  BongKyoo Choi, University of California Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, Irvine, CA 92617, USA
• Email:
  b.choi@uci.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2013
• Performing Organization:
  University of California Los Angeles
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  The Lancet
• End Date:
  20270630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:4f490e34e2c7105378f775ebd958d8f83abb22f983f5c7a65905ac6ef1568eae02931fffc9bc5360d3dcefbb826f5abe695229c08350b4c9dab34eb5cf5d9c49
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/213735/cdc_213735_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 38.55 KB ]