Workplace bullying, violence tied to ‘heart problems’ risk
1 in 3 women suffer abuse
NEW YORK, Dec 2, (Agencies): People who are bullied or exposed to violence on the job may be more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than individuals who don’t deal with these challenges at work, a European study suggests.
Researchers examined survey data from more than 79,000 working men and women between 19 and 65 years old who didn’t have a history of heart disease. Overall, about 9 percent of them reported being bullied and 13 percent said they had been exposed to violence on the job in the last year.
After an average follow-up period of more than 12 years, 3,229 people, or about 4 percent of the workers in the study, were diagnosed with heart disease or hospitalized for related events like a heart attack or stroke.
Hospitalized
Workers who were bullied on the job were 59 percent more likely to be diagnosed with heart disease or hospitalized for heart attacks or strokes than those who were not bullied, the study found. And workers who were exposed to violence had 25 percent higher likelihood of developing heart disease or being hospitalized for related events.
“If we can eliminate workplace bullying and workplace violence, the impact on cardiovascular disease prevention would be similar to if we prevent diabetes and risky alcohol drinking,” said lead study author Tianwei Xu of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
Difficult work conditions, including job strain and excessive hours, have long been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, but research to date hasn’t offered a clear picture of what role might be played by exposure to bullying and violence, the researchers write in the European Heart Journal.
Still, stressors like bullying and violence might contribute to mood disorders like anxiety or depression or fuel unhealthy behaviors like smoking or eating and drinking too much, the study authors note.
Severe stress may also contribute to high blood pressure, which in turn increases the risk of heart disease.
Bullying, or psychologically aggressive behavior, affected from 8 percent to 13 percent of workers across three different surveys examined in the study.
Most bullies were colleagues, supervisors or subordinates, rather than clients or other individuals outside the workplace.
About 7 percent to 17 percent of workers were exposed to violence, which included both threatened and actual physical harms. Most perpetrators of physical violence were clients or people served by workers, not supervisors or colleagues.
Certain professions appeared to have an outsize risk of physical violence: more than 47 percent of social workers experienced this, as did more than 29 percent of personal and protective service workers, more than 25 percent of healthcare workers, and more than 16 percent of teachers.
For the analysis, researchers looked at workers in Denmark and Sweden who were participants in three studies that began between 1995 and 2011. Researchers examined national health registry data for evidence of heart disease.
The new analysis wasn’t designed to prove whether or how exposure to bullying or violence at work might directly cause heart disease or related events like heart attacks or strokes.
Also: WASHINGTON:
One in three women in the Americas has suffered violence at the hands of their domestic partner at some point in their life, according to a study released Thursday by the Pan American Health Organization.
“In our region, intimate partner violence is the most prevalent form of violence against women, affecting one in every three women in the Americas,” said Isabella Danel, the deputy director of the organization.
She said rates vary from country to country across the region, with some nations recording a rate of 14 percent and others, such as Bolivia, as much as 60 percent.