IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v46y1998i11p1405-1415.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is the effect of job strain on myocardial infarction risk due to interaction between high psychological demands and low decision latitude? Results from Stockholm Heart Epidemiology Program (SHEEP)

Author

Listed:
  • Hallqvist, Johan
  • Diderichsen, Finn
  • Theorell, Töres
  • Reuterwall, Christina
  • Ahlbom, Anders

Abstract

The objectives are to examine if the excess risk of myocardial infarction from exposure to job strain is due to interaction between high demands and low control and to analyse what role such an interaction has regarding socioeconomic differences in risk of myocardial infarction. The material is a population-based case-referent study having incident first events of myocardial infarction as outcome (SHEEP: Stockholm Heart Epidemiology Program). The analysis is restricted to males 45-64Â yr of age with a more detailed analysis confined to those still working at inclusion. In total, 1047 cases and 1450 referents were included in the analysis. Exposure categories of job strain were formed from self reported questionnaire information. The results show that high demands and low decision latitude interact with a synergy index of 7.5 (95% C.I.: 1.8-30.6) providing empirical support for the core mechanism of the job strain model. Manual workers are more susceptible when exposed to job strain and its components and this increased susceptibility explains about 25-50% of the relative excess risk among manual workers. Low decision latitude may also, as a causal link, explain about 30% of the socioeconomic difference in risk of myocardial infarction. The distinction between the interaction and the causal link mechanisms identifies new etiologic questions and intervention alternatives. The specific causes of the increased susceptibility among manual workers to job strain and its components seem to be an interesting and important research question.

Suggested Citation

  • Hallqvist, Johan & Diderichsen, Finn & Theorell, Töres & Reuterwall, Christina & Ahlbom, Anders, 1998. "Is the effect of job strain on myocardial infarction risk due to interaction between high psychological demands and low decision latitude? Results from Stockholm Heart Epidemiology Program (SHEEP)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 46(11), pages 1405-1415, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:46:y:1998:i:11:p:1405-1415
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(97)10084-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Padyab, Mojgan & Blomstedt, Yulia & Norberg, Margareta, 2014. "No association found between cardiovascular mortality, and job demands and decision latitude: Experience from the Västerbotten Intervention Programme in Sweden," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 58-66.
    2. Tsutsumi, Akizumi & Kayaba, Kazunori & Ishikawa, Shizukiyo, 2011. "Impact of occupational stress on stroke across occupational classes and genders," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(10), pages 1652-1658, May.
    3. Ibrahim, S. & Smith, P. & Muntaner, C., 2009. "A multi-group cross-lagged analyses of work stressors and health using Canadian National sample," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 49-59, January.
    4. Hedley Knewjen Quintana & Max Vikström & Tomas Andersson & Johan Hallqvist & Karin Leander, 2015. "Agreement between Myocardial Infarction Patients and Their Spouses on Reporting of Data on 82 Cardiovascular Risk Exposures," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-16, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:46:y:1998:i:11:p:1405-1415. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.