Shift work, occupation and coronary heart disease over

TLDR

The study examined whether shift work increases coronary heart disease risk and explored potential pathways linking shift work to CHD among industrial workers. Using a cohort of 1,806 Finnish workers, the authors linked psychosocial questionnaire data, lifestyle factors, blood pressure, and lipid levels to official CHD registry outcomes and applied Cox proportional hazards models with various covariates. Shift workers had a 40–50 % higher CHD risk after adjustment for age and lifestyle, with blue‑collar and multi‑shift workers showing the greatest excess risk, supporting a stress‑related mechanism.

Abstract

Objectives The risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) in shift work and the possible pathways for CHD in industrial workers were studied along with the importance of shift work as an occupational class gradient of CHD risk. Methods Data from a psychosocial questionnaire and on life-style factors, blood pressure, and serum lipid levels were used for a follow-up study of a cohort of 1806 workers. CHD was determined from official Finnish registers. Cox's proportional hazards models were used with different covariates to evaluate the relative risks associated with shift work. Results All the blue-collar workers smoked more and a had higher systolic blood pressure than the white-collar workers. Three-shift workers scored low for job-decision latitude on the Karasek job stress scales. There were no differences in the total cholesterol or high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels. When all the shift workers were compared with all the day workers, the relative risk of CHD was 1.5 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.1--2.1] when only age was adjusted for and 1.4 (95% CI 1.0--1.9) when life-style factors, blood pressure, and serum lipids were also adjusted for. The blue-collar day workers and 2-shift and 3-shift workers had relative risks of 1.3 (95% CI 0.8--2.0), 1.9 (95% CI 1.1--3.4), and 1.7 (95% CI 1.1--2.7), respectively, when compared with the white-collar day workers. Conclusion Shift work is an important part of the occupational gradient in CHD risk among industrial workers; some evidence was found for the hypothesis that a direct stress-related mechanism explains part of the increased CHD risk.