Dataset Information

Long working hours and cancer risk: a multi-cohort study.

ABSTRACT: Background: Working longer than the maximum recommended hours is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, but the relationship of excess working hours with incident cancer is unclear.

Methods: This multi-cohort study examined the association between working hours and cancer risk in 116?462 men and women who were free of cancer at baseline. Incident cancers were ascertained from national cancer, hospitalisation and death registers; weekly working hours were self-reported.

Results: During median follow-up of 10.8 years, 4371 participants developed cancer (n colorectal cancer: 393; n lung cancer: 247; n breast cancer: 833; and n prostate cancer: 534). We found no clear evidence for an association between working hours and the overall cancer risk. Working hours were also unrelated the risk of incident colorectal, lung or prostate cancers. Working ?55?h per week was associated with 1.60-fold (95% confidence interval 1.12-2.29) increase in female breast cancer risk independently of age, socioeconomic position, shift- and night-time work and lifestyle factors, but this observation may have been influenced by residual confounding from parity.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that working long hours is unrelated to the overall cancer risk or the risk of lung, colorectal or prostate cancers. The observed association with breast cancer would warrant further research.

SUBMITTER: Heikkila K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4984872 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Long working hours and cancer risk: a multi-cohort study.

Heikkila Katriina K Nyberg Solja T ST Madsen Ida E H IE de Vroome Ernest E Alfredsson Lars L Bjorner Jacob J JJ Borritz Marianne M Burr Hermann H Erbel Raimund R Ferrie Jane E JE Fransson Eleonor I EI Geuskens Goedele A GA Hooftman Wendela E WE Houtman Irene L IL Jöckel Karl-Heinz KH Knutsson Anders A Koskenvuo Markku M Lunau Thorsten T Nielsen Martin L ML Nordin Maria M Oksanen Tuula T Pejtersen Jan H JH Pentti Jaana J Shipley Martin J MJ Steptoe Andrew A Suominen Sakari B SB Theorell Töres T Vahtera Jussi J Westerholm Peter J M PJ Westerlund Hugo H Dragano Nico N Rugulies Reiner R Kawachi Ichiro I Batty G David GD Singh-Manoux Archana A Virtanen Marianna M Kivimäki Mika M

British journal of cancer 20160218 7

<h4>Background</h4>Working longer than the maximum recommended hours is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, but the relationship of excess working hours with incident cancer is unclear.<h4>Methods</h4>This multi-cohort study examined the association between working hours and cancer risk in 116 462 men and women who were free of cancer at baseline. Incident cancers were ascertained from national cancer, hospitalisation and death registers; weekly working hours were self-r ...[more]

PMID: 26889978

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Project description:BackgroundStudies on the association between long working hours and health have captured only a narrow range of outcomes (mainly cardiometabolic diseases and depression) and no outcome-wide studies on this topic are available. To achieve wider scope of potential harm, we examined long working hours as a risk factor for a wide range of disease and mortality endpoints.MethodsThe data of this multicohort study were from two population cohorts from Finland (primary analysis, n=59 599) and nine cohorts (replication analysis, n=44 262) from Sweden, Denmark, and the UK, all part of the Individual-participant Meta-analysis in Working Populations (IPD-Work) consortium. Baseline-assessed long working hours (≥55 hours per week) were compared to standard working hours (35-40 h). Outcome measures with follow-up until age 65 years were 46 diseases that required hospital treatment or continuous pharmacotherapy, all-cause, and three cause-specific mortality endpoints, ascertained via linkage to national health and mortality registers.Findings2747 (4·6%) participants in the primary cohorts and 3027 (6·8%) in the replication cohorts worked long hours. After adjustment for age, sex, and socioeconomic status, working long hours was associated with increased risk of cardiovascular death (hazard ratio 1·68; 95% confidence interval 1·08-2·61 in primary analysis and 1·52; 0·90-2·58 in replication analysis), infections (1·37; 1·13-1·67 and 1·45; 1·13-1·87), diabetes (1·18; 1·01-1·38 and 1·41; 0·98-2·02), injuries (1·22; 1·00-1·50 and 1·18; 0·98-1·18) and musculoskeletal disorders (1·15; 1·06-1·26 and 1·13; 1·00-1·27). Working long hours was not associated with all-cause mortality.InterpretationFollow-up of 50 health outcomes in four European countries suggests that working long hours is associated with an elevated risk of early cardiovascular death and hospital-treated infections before age 65. Associations, albeit weak, were also observed with diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders and injuries. In these data working long hours was not related to elevated overall mortality.FundingNordForsk, the Medical Research Council, the National Institute on Aging, the Wellcome Trust, Academy of Finland, and Finnish Work Environment Fund.

Dataset Information

Long working hours and cancer risk: a multi-cohort study.

Publications

Long working hours and cancer risk: a multi-cohort study.

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