Smith P, et al. – This study gauged the association between occupations necessitating predominantly sitting, and those requiring predominantly standing, and incident heart disease. The data illustrated that cardiovascular risk was linked to occupations that involve combinations of sitting, standing and walking varied for men and women. Such occupations were related to lower cardiovascular risk estimates among men, but elevated risk estimates among women.

Methods

• The design of this research was a prospective cohort study.
• It focused on combining the responses to a population health survey with administrative health care records, linked at the individual level.
• It was carried out in Ontario, Canada.
• The recruitment comprised of 7320 employed labour market participants (50% male) working 15 hours a week or more and free of heart disease at baseline.
• An analysis was performed of the incident heart disease through administrative records over an approximately 12-year follow-up period (2003-2015).
• Models were adjusted for a wide range of potential confounding factors.

Results

• A correlation was noted between occupations involving predominantly standing with an approximately two-fold risk of heart disease, compared to occupations involving predominantly sitting.
• This relationship was found to be robust to adjustment for other health, socio-demographic and work variables.