Relationship between commuting and health outcomes in a cross-sectional population survey in southern Sweden

Abstract

BackgroundThe need for a mobile workforce inevitably means that the length of the total work day (working and traveling time) will increase, but the health effects of commuting have been surprisingly little studied apart from perceived stress and the benefits of physically active commuting.MethodsWe used data from two cross-sectional population-based public health surveys performed in 2004 and 2008 in Scania, Sweden (56% response rate). The final study population was 21, 088 persons aged 18-65, working > 30 h/week. Duration (one-way) and mode of commuting were reported. The outcomes studied were perceived poor sleep quality, everyday stress, low vitality, mental health, self-reported health, and absence from work due to sickness during the past 12 months. Covariates indicating socioeconomic status and family situation, overtime, job strain and urban/rural residency were included in multivariate analyses. Subjects walking or cycling to work < 30 min were used as a reference category.ResultsMonotonous relations were found between duration of public transport commuting and the health outcomes. For the category commuting > 60 min odds ratios (ORs) ranged from 1.2 - 1.6 for the different outcomes. For car commuting, the relationships were concave downward or flat, with increasing subjective health complaints up to 30-60 min (ORs ranging from 1.2 - 1.4), and lower ORs in the > 60 min category. A similar concave downward relationship was observed for sickness absence, regardless of mode of transport.ConclusionsThe results of this study are concordant with the few earlier studies in the field, in that associations were found between commutation and negative health outcomes. This further demonstrates the need to consider the negative side-effects of commuting when discussing policies aimed at increasing the mobility of the workforce. Studies identifying population groups with increased susceptibility are warranted.

Greenhouse gas emissions and subjective well-being: An analysis of Swedish households

“…Irrespective of what mode of transport a person use, commuting also takes time from other social activities that are beneficial for our well-being (Dolan and White 2007) and has also been shown to correlate with health problems (Hansson 2011) and low levels of SWB (Stutzer and Frey 2008;Killingsworth and Gilbert 2010). However, Olsson et al (2013) found that feelings during commutes are predominantly positive or neutral and speculate that the commuting offers buffer time between work and private spheres of life.…”

Work-related stress assessment among a garment factory employees in Bangalore suburban locality

“…For car commuting, the relationships were concave downward or flat, with increasing subjective health complaints up to 30-60 min (ORs ranging from 1.2-1.4), and lower ORs in the >60 min category. 25 A number of limitations of our study need to be noted. We drew on cross-sectional data, which does not allow inferences of causality from observed associations.…”

Commuting and Sickness Absence

“…Furthermore, commuting has been shown to be associated with increased heart rate and blood pressure (Novaco et al, 1979;Schaeffer et al, 1988). Further, commuting translates into shorter sleeping times and sleep disorders (Costa et al, 1988;Walsleben et al, 1999;Hansson et al, 2011), a lower social capital and participation (Mattisson et al, 2015), which has in turn been associated with health outcomes (Putnam, 2000;Lindström, 2004;Besser et al, 2008), negative mood (Gulian et al, 1989), emotional arousal (Hennessy and Wiesenthal, 1997), lower well-being and life satisfaction (Stutzer and Frey, 2008;Roberts et al, 2011;Olsson et al, 2013) as well as higher levels of workplace aggression (Hennessy, 2008), poor concentration levels (Matthews et al, 1991) and a higher risk of mortality (Sandow et al, 2014).…”