Evidence from:
T.Hallman et al. Journal of Cardiovascular Risk Feb (2001) Vol.8 #1 p.39.
After suffering manifest coronary disease it was found that compared with controls, there was excess family strife, physical stress, burn-out, daily hassles. Some of these could be subject to modification at work.
The Radar report is available to subscribers:
Evidence from:
GW Evans et al. Journal of Applied Psychology. Oct (2000) Vol. 85 #5 p.779.
40 experienced female office workers were assigned at random to a well-controlled trial of office work with or without open office noise at 55 dBA.
Epinephrine, nor epinephrine and cortisol were measured before and after the test period. Subjects were asked to solve insoluble problems after the test period.
The Radar report is available to subscribers:
Evidence from:
CK Nordstrom et al. Epidemiology. March (2001) Vol. 12 #2 p.180.
The authors claim that raised lesions in the left and right carotid arteries were more common or more pronounced in the higher stress groups after 18 months. The effect was confined to men.
The Radar report is available to subscribers:
Evidence from:
A Steptoe. Journal of Psychosomatic Research (2001) Vol. 50 #2 p 57.
One interpretation would be that chronic low control may be harmless, but that unfamiliar episodes of low control may not be.
It is not clear whether or not the perception of low control while at work is enhanced by a perceived change in blood pressure. If it were, the study may have been over-interpreted.
The Radar report is available to subscribers:
Evidence from:
A Tsutsumi et al. Occupational and Environmental Medicine. June (2001) Vol.58 #6 p 367.
Hypertension was associated with age, family history and body mass index (BMI). There was a barely detectable association with job strain (high demands + low control).
The Radar report is available to subscribers:
Evidence from:
S Levenstein et al. Arch Intern Med. May (2001) Vol. 28;161(10) p 1341-6.
Psychosocial stressors have been shown to predict hypertension in several cohort studies.
In this study, 2357 adults, free of hypertension in 1974 were surveyed at baseline for psychosocial, behavioral, and socio-demographic factors.
20 years later 637 reported having ever used anti-hypertensive medication (27.9% of the men and 26.3% of the women).
In multivariate models, job insecurity (odds ratio, 1.6), unemployment (odds ratio, 2.7), and low self-reported job performance (odds ratio, 2.1) remained independent predictors of hypertension in men, whereas low-status work (odds ratio, 1.3) was an independent predictor of hypertension in women.
Comment
Given that these factors could all change in space of a few months, it would have been of interest to monitor the baseline data at repeated points during the 20-year study period.
Unemployment was the most predictive risk factor.
Evidence from:
RS Vasan et al. The Lancet. November (2001) Vol. 358 #9294 p 1682.
Stress researchers hope to link changes in blood pressure to work conditions. The research here provides baseline data on the normal working population and how blood pressure changes with age. Stress would have to measureably add to normal variation.
The Radar report is available to subscribers:
Evidence from:
M Kivimaka et al. Work and Stress. March (2001) Vol. 15#1 p 3.
The authors concluded that shift work leads to bad health habits, assuming initial equivalence has
always been the case (which they do not know).
The Radar report is available to subscribers:
Evidence from: