August 27, 2011

According to a recent study coming out of Canada, workers in high-stress jobs visit healthcare professional 26% more than their counterparts in low-stress jobs, and high-stress jobs cause workers to seek help from healthcare professionals for physical, mental and emotional ailments linked to the job.

Conducted by economists at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and published in BMC Public Health on August 11, 2011, the researchers evaluated a nationally representative data sample of over 29,000 observations from the Canadian National Population Health Survey (NPHS).

The NPHS statistics allowed the researchers to account for a broad range of variables including the number of healthcare visits, health status, workplace social support, chronic illnesses, marital status, income level, smoking and drinking habits, and physical activity, for the periods 2000/2001 and 2008/2009. Seven job categories were also taken from the North American Industry Classification System available within NPHS: mechanical, trade, professional, managerial, health, service, and farm.

“These results show that people in medium-to-high stress jobs visit family doctors and specialists more often than workers with low job stress,” said first author Sunday Azagba, a PhD candidate at Concordia Department of Economics in a Concordia University press release.

The statistics were restricted to adults of ages 18-65 years old, representing the greater part of the Canadian workforce. Job stress was based on job strain, and figures were derived by Statistics Canada based on job-related questions concerning decision (control) latitude and psychological demands.

“We believe an increasing number of workers are using medical services to cope with job stress,” says co-author Mesbah Sharaf, a PhD candidate in the Concordia Department of Economics in the release.

"Numerous studies have linked stress to back pain, colorectal cancer, infectious disease, heart problems, headaches and diabetes,” continued Sharaf in the release. “It is estimated that healthcare utilization induced by stress costs U.S. companies $68 billion annually and reduces their profits by 10 per cent."

Source: Azagba S., Sharaf MF. “Psychosocial working conditions and the utilization of health care services.” BMC Public Health, 2011;11(1):642 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-11-642.

Dave Gorczynski is president of SPARK, a non-profit organization that has provided free energy work sessions and workshops across New York City since 2002. He writes a regular column about energy work and meditation for the Compact News in New York City's Chinatown. E-mail him at dave@sparkenergy.org.