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The study includes more than 72,000 men and women between the ages of 18 and 75 from 14 different occupational groups. Between 2014 and 2019, participants took a health and fitness survey and answered questions about perceived health and lifestyle.
The study shows, among other things, that Risk factors for individual health, such as low fitness, obesity, and smoking, are almost twice as common in people in certain lower-educated occupations than in higher-educated occupations. But the study also shows that health risk factors not only differ between different levels of education, but also vary according to different types of profession, says Anna Nyberg, associate professor of psychology and researcher in psychosocial work environment and health at Uppsala University.
According to this study, contact professions, such as care workers and teachers, have more risk factors and there are also occupational groups with poorer psychosocial work environment and higher rates of sick leave than many other occupational groups. This study does not show why different occupational groups have different patterns of risk factors and it becomes important to focus on what in the work environment may be behind the variations, says Anna Nyberg.
– You can get a hypothesis here that this is precisely how it looks in these different professions quite simply. This means that it can be linked to the work environment because many contact professions require quite a long training, but still stand out. If you look at contact professions, you probably have worse opportunities to monitor your work hours, for example, because you are busy working with patients or students – the people you engage with at work. And then you have fewer opportunities to control your own work hours, and therefore perhaps worse opportunities to take care of yourself as well.
Reference: Väisänen, D., Kallings, LV, Andersson, G. et al. “Health risk indicators associated with lifestyle in a wide range of occupational groups: a cross-sectional analysis in 72,855 workers”. BMC Public Health 20, 1656 (2020).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09755-6
