Heart Disease

“Cardiovascular disease (CVD), including heart disease and stroke, is the major cause of disease and death in the industrialized world and is projected to become the most common cause of death worldwide by the year 2020. CVD and hypertension (high blood pressure) appear to be epidemics of recent historical origin, developing along with industrialization and urbanization, and now increasing in the context of economic globalization. Modern medicine focuses on individual risk factors for hypertension and CVD, often ignoring the important role that social factors, such as social class, work organization, and work-related psychosocial stressors, play in the development of hypertension and CVD. Social factors need to be fully integrated into explanations of disease development.

Increased CVD risk has been associated with job characteristics such as long work hours, shift work, “job strain” (a combination of high psychological work demands and low job decision latitude, or job control), high job efforts combined with low job rewards, injustice, job insecurity, and work that involves maintaining a high level of vigilance in order to avoid disaster, such as loss of human life. Sources of stress on the job (job stressors), besides acting directly on the human nervous system, may increase the risk of hypertension and CVD through a variety of mechanisms, including inhibiting healthy behaviors such as smoking cessation and exercise, or by producing psychological distress, such as anxiety and depression. Public health strategies are needed to address the pandemic of CVD, including worksite surveillance, development of the field of occupational cardiology, integration of health promotion with occupational health approaches, and job redesign.”*

*Taken from: Schnall PL, Dobson M, Rosskam E, Editors Unhealthy Work: Causes, Consequences, Cures. Baywood Publishing, 2009.

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