Men who work in stressful jobs that require a lot of effort but little reward are twice as likely to develop heart disease as men without those stressors, a study has found.
The combined impact of job stress and effort-reward imbalance was similar in magnitude to the impact of obesity on coronary heart disease risk, said the study published Tuesday in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.
A study looking at data from nearly 6,500 white-collar workers in Canada found inconclusive results about how job stress affects women’s heart health.
“Our study highlights the urgent need to proactively address stressful working conditions and create healthier work environments that benefit employees and employers,” lead study author Mathilde Lavigne-Robichaud, a doctoral candidate in the Population Health and Optimal Health Habits Research Unit at the Laval Research Centre of the University of Quebec in Quebec, Canada, said in a news release.
Research has shown that both job stress and effort-reward imbalance at work can increase the risk of heart disease, but few studies have explored their combined effects.
So the researchers looked at health and workplace survey information for 3,118 men and 3,347 women in Quebec, including senior managerial, professional, technical and clerical workers, some of whom had less than a high school diploma and some had college degrees.
The participants, whose average age was about 45 years old, had no history of heart disease at the time of the study’s start. They were followed up for 18 years, from 2000 to 2018.
The researchers used existing health databases to search for information on heart disease. Job stress and effort-reward imbalance were measured with questionnaires.
Lavigne-Robichaux said job stress refers to an environment in which employees have high job demands and low control over their work. High demands include a high workload, tight deadlines and lots of responsibility, while low control means employees have little say in decisions or how their work is accomplished.
“Effort-reward imbalance occurs when employees put a lot of effort into their jobs but feel that the rewards they receive in return — salary, recognition, job security — are not commensurate or commensurate with their efforts,” she said.
The study found that men who reported experiencing either work stress or effort-reward imbalance had a 49% higher risk of heart disease compared with men who experienced neither.
Men who reported both job stress and effort-reward imbalance had twice the risk of heart disease compared with men who did not. For these men, the combined effect of job stress and effort-reward imbalance was similar to the effect of obesity on coronary heart disease risk.
The study failed to establish a direct link between psychosocial stress at work and coronary heart disease in women, suggesting that further research is needed, Lavigne-Robicheau said.
But overall, she said, “our findings suggest that interventions aimed at reducing stressors from the work environment may be particularly effective for men, and may also have a positive impact on women, as these stressors are associated with other common health problems such as depression.”
Such interventions could include providing support resources, promoting work-life balance, increasing communication and giving employees more control over their work, she said.
The study was limited in that it looked primarily at white-collar workers in Quebec, and the results may not fully reflect the diversity of the U.S. workforce, but Lavigne-Robicheau said the findings could be relevant to white-collar workers in the U.S. and other high-income countries with similar employment structures.
“Given that people spend a significant amount of time at work, understanding the relationship between job stress and cardiovascular health is critical for public health and worker well-being,” she said.
