Objectives Short time between consecutive work shifts (quick returns, ie, ≤11 hours between shifts) is associated with sleepiness and fatigue, both of which have been linked to risk of injury. This paper aims to study quick returns between work shifts and risk of injury among Danish hospital workers. Method The study population included 69 200 employees, primarily working at hospitals, corresponding to 167 726 person years at risk between 2008-2015. Information on working hours was obtained from payroll data in the Danish Working Hour Database and linked, at an individual level, with data on 11 834 injury records identified in the National Patient Register and the Danish Register of Causes of Death. Multivariate Poisson regression models were used to calculate incidence rate ratios (IRR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results Results showed the shorter the time between shifts, the higher the risk of injury. Thus, an elevated risk of injury was observed after quick returns compared with the standard 15-17 hours between shifts (IRR 1.39, 95% CI 1.23-1.58). Furthermore, when assessing the number of days since a quick return, the risk of injury was especially high within the first two days (day 1: IRR 1.39, 95% CI 1.23-1.58; day 2: IRR 1.39, 95% CI 1.21-1.58) following a quick return. Conclusions Our results suggest that quick returns increased the risk of injury, in particular within the first two days following a quick return. These findings point towards avoiding or reducing the number of quick returns in order to lower employees' risk of injury.
Objectives
To examine the presence of a dose-response relationship between work hours and incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) in a representative sample of U.S. workers.
Methods
Retrospective cohort study of 1,926 individuals from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1986–2011) employed for at least 10 years. Restricted cubic spline regression was used to estimate the dose-response relationship of work hours with CVD.
Results
A dose-response relationship was observed in which an average workweek of 46 hours or more for at least 10 years was associated with increased risk of CVD. Compared to working 45 hours per week, working an additional 10 hours per week or more for at least 10 years increased CVD risk by at least 16%.
Conclusions
Working more than 45 work hours per week for at least 10 years may be an independent risk factor for CVD.
Working long hours has been associated with adverse health outcomes. However, a definition of long work hours relative to adverse health risk has not been established. Repeated measures of work hours among approximately 2,000 participants from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1986-2011), conducted in the United States, were retrospectively analyzed to derive statistically optimized cutpoints of long work hours that best predicted three health outcomes. Work-hours cutpoints were assessed for model fit, calibration, and discrimination separately for the outcomes of poor self-reported general health, incident cardiovascular disease, and incident cancer. For each outcome, the work-hours threshold that best predicted increased risk was 52 hours per week or more for a minimum of 10 years. Workers exposed at this level had a higher risk of poor self-reported general health (relative risk (RR) = 1.28; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.06, 1.53), cardiovascular disease (RR = 1.42; 95% CI: 1.24, 1.63), and cancer (RR = 1.62; 95% CI: 1.22, 2.17) compared with those working 35-51 hours per week for the same duration. This study provides the first health risk-based definition of long work hours. Further examination of the predictive power of this cutpoint on other health outcomes and in other study populations is needed.
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