Gender, depression, and blue-collar work: A retrospective cohort study of U.S. aluminum manufacturers

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Epidemiology
• Personal Author:
  Elser, Holly ; Rehkopf, David H. ; Meausoone, Valerie ; Jewell, Nicholas P. ; Eisen, Ellen A. ; Cullen, Mark R.
• Description:
  Background:
  
  Industrial blue-collar workers face multiple work-related stressors, but evidence regarding the burden of mental illness among today’s blue-collar men and women remains limited.
  
  Methods:
  
  In this retrospective cohort study, we examined health and employment records for 37,183 blue- and white-collar workers employed by a single U.S. aluminum manufacturer from 2003 – 2013. Using Cox proportional hazards regression, we modeled time to first episode of treated depression by gender and occupational class. Among cases, we modeled rates of depression-related service utilization with generalized gamma regression.
  
  Results:
  
  Compared with their white-collar counterparts, blue-collar men were more likely to be treated for depression (HR = 1.3, 95% CI 1.1 – 1.4) as were blue-collar women (HR = 1.4, 1.2 – 1.6). Blue-collar women were most likely to be treated for depression as compared with white-collar men (HR = 3.2, 95% CI 2.1 – 5.0). However, blue-collar workers used depression-related services less frequently than their white-collar counterparts among both men (RR = 0.91, 95% CI 0.84 – 0.98) and women (RR = 0.82, 95% CI 0.77 – 0.88).
  
  Conclusion:
  
  Blue-collar women were most likely to be treated for depression compared with white-collar workers, and blue-collar women were most likely to be treated for depression compared with white-collar men. However, blue-collar men and women used depression-related healthcare services less frequently than white-collar workers. These findings underscore that blue-collar women may be uniquely susceptible to depression, and suggest that blue-collar workers may encounter barriers to care-seeking related mental illness other than their insurance status.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Adult Aluminum Article Depression Female Gender Differences Humans Male Manufacturing Manufacturing Industry Middle Aged Occupational Class Retrospective Studies Risk Factors Sex Distribution United States Work

  More +
• Source:
  Epidemiology. 30(3):435-444
• Pubmed ID:
  30964814
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC6461367
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  F31 MH112246/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/United States ; R01 AG026291/AG/NIA NIH HHS/United States ; R01 OH009939/OH/NIOSH CDC HHS/United States
• Volume:
  30
• Issue:
  3
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:6f5b0aed31419cfacade7c54ff72a559398be2df73287a316b1099c47ba8325f
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/77514/cdc_77514_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 274.11 KB ]