Heart Disease and Work

Key points

• A person's job can increase their risk of heart disease.
• There are multiple work-related risk factors for heart disease.
• Some jobs have a higher risk for heart disease.
• There are things employers and employees can do to reduce heart disease.

Overview

Heart disease refers to health conditions that involve the heart or blood vessels.

One factor that can cause heart disease is exposure to certain social, organizational, and environmental conditions at work.

Keep ReadingLearn more about heart disease

Facts

Among working-age populations, work is linked to about 10-20% of all cardiovascular disease deaths.

Each year in the United States, 10 work-related factors cause 5-8% of healthcare costs and 120,000 deaths (including heart disease):

• Long working hours (55 hours or more per week)
• Working nights, rotating shifts, or other non-standard shifts
• High job demand
• Low job control
• Low job security (worried about losing one's job)
• Work-family imbalance
• Low organizational justice (feeling of being treated unfairly at work)
• Low workplace social support
• Unemployment
• No health insurance

Work-related factors

There is evidence that these job-related factors increase heart disease risk:

• working in a job that has high effort, low reward
• bullying or violence
• lower income
• increased physical activity
• dust, fume, or chemical exposures, such as secondhand smoke and lead)

Other job-related factors

Your job may also influence your other risk factors for heart disease. This includes whether you have high blood pressure, high glucose, or high cholesterol. Whether you are obese, don't exercise, or have an unhealthy diet. If you are burned out or depressed, use alcohol excessively, or have problems sleeping.

Keep ReadingLearn about other heart disease risk factors

Jobs most at risk

These occupations have a higher risk of heart disease.

• Professional drivers, including long-haul truck drivers
• First responders, including police officers and firefighters
• Food and drink preparatory workers
• Fishery workers
• Cargo workers
• Civil engineer workers
• Plant and machine operators and assemblers

Did you know?

You can use the NIOSH Worker Health Charts to examine heart disease risk factors.Chart data in Worker Health Charts

Resources

The NIOSH Total Worker Health® Program advances worker well-being. It integrates work-related safety and health hazards protection with injury and illness prevention. CDC also has a Workplace Health Program.

Search the NIOSHTIC-2 database to find additional occupational safety and health publications on this topic from NIOSH or a NIOSH-supported project.

Offer workplace programs and activities

• Build short physical activity breaks (5-10 min) into the workday.
• Offer workplace health programs that counsel employees on healthier behaviors.
• Ensure employees are properly trained to prevent chemical exposures. See Hierarchy of Controls.
• Don't allow smoking in the workplace.
• Offer healthy foods in workplace vending machines and cafeterias.

Implement workplace surveillance programs

• Do workplace health screenings and referrals.
• Provide portable (ambulatory) monitors for employees to more accurately measure their blood pressure while working.
• Survey your workforce to understand work organization and work psychosocial stressors. These stressors may be chronic, occurring daily, or could be the result of major life events.

Lower work-related stressors

Organizational, collective bargaining, and legislative interventions can lower employees' work-related stress and fatigue.

• Reduce mandatory overtime.
• Provide family sick leave.
• Increase staff in healthcare settings (e.g., provide better nurse-to-patient staffing ratios).
• Form workplace committees to identify and reduce job stressors (e.g., develop labor-management committees).
• Increase workers' influence on working time, work tasks, or work organization.

Keep ReadingMore about preventing heart disease

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