Cardiovascular risk factors and primary selection into shift work

Does workplace health promotion reach shift workers?

“…Previous research has shown that some degree of health behavior-related selection into shift work takes place (4,5). However, we found differences in the availability of health promotion even after adjustment for smoking, dietary habits, leisure-time physical activity, and BMI.…”

“…First, a certain degree of selection of employees with relatively poor lifestyle into shift work appears to take place (4,5). Second, due to circadian disruption, shift work may lead to behavioral stress reactions (1,6), such as smoking (4,7,8), weight gain (9)(10)(11) or physical inactivity (7).…”

Primary selection into shift work and change of cardiovascular risk profile

“…However, after the adjustment for the heterogeneous smoking status at the baseline, the effect was diminished. Few studies reported a change in smoking behavior in a longitudinal setting (11,14). Their inability to find a change in smoking behavior in the Swedish study (14) might be mostly attributed to the …”

Working shifts and mental health – findings from the British Household Panel Survey (1995–2005)

“…There is also a selection out of shift work ("healthy shift worker survivor effect"). Some recent studies have shown no differences in illnesses or socio-demographic characteristics between future day and shift workers (27), or between shift or day workers leaving their work due to illness (28). However, these findings are limited to healthcare workers and cardiovascular disease, and cannot be extrapolated to a large range of occupations in a general working population and/or to mental health problems.…”