Women with high job strain are 67% more likely to experience a heart attack and 38% more likely to have a cardiovascular event than their counterparts in low strain jobs, according to a study published July 18 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The researchers, led by Dr. Michelle A. Albert of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, did not find any correlation between job insecurity and long-term cardiovascular disease risk.
Dr. Albert noted, "elevated job strain, a form of psychological stress, has long term cardiovascular health effects in women and could suggest the need for health care providers to incorporate assessment of and identification of useful interventions that minimize the effects of job strain".
The study monitored over 22,000 female health professionals in the US over 10 years. Based on self-reported job characteristics, the researchers found that higher job strain was correlated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
Citation: Slopen N, Glynn RJ, Buring JE, Lewis TT, Williams DR, et al. (2012) Job Strain, Job Insecurity, and Incident Cardiovascular Disease in the Women's Health Study: Results from a 10-Year Prospective Study. PLoS ONE 7(7): e40512. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0040512
Financial Disclosure: The Women's Health Study is supported by grants HL-080467, HL099355, HL-43851 and CA-47988 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Albert is supported by an H. Richard Nesson Award from the Brigham and Women's Hospital. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interest Statement: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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