Work stress and risk of cancer: meta-analysis of 5700 incident cancer events in 116,000 European men and women.

Katriina Heikkilä (1) , Solja T Nyberg (1) , Töres Theorell (2) , Eleonor I Fransson (2, 3, 4) , Lars Alfredsson (4) , Jakob B Bjorner (5) , Sébastien Bonenfant (6) , Marianne Borritz (7) , Kim Bouillon (8) , Herman Burr (9) , Nico Dragano (10) , Goedele A Geuskens (11) , Marcel Goldberg (6) , Mark Hamer (8) , Wendela E Hooftman (11) , Irene L Houtman (11) , Matti Joensuu (1) , Anders Knutsson (12) , Markku Koskenvuo (13) , Aki Koskinen (1) , Anne Kouvonen (14) , Ida E H Madsen (5) , Linda L Magnusson Hanson (2) , Michael G Marmot (8) , Martin L Nielsen (7) , Maria Nordin (15, 16) , Tuula Oksanen (16) , Jaana Pentti (16, 17) , Paula Salo (16, 18, 17) , Reiner Rugulies (5, 19) , Andrew Steptoe (8) , Sakari Suominen (20, 21) , Jussi Vahtera (16, 20) , Marianna Virtanen (1) , Ari Väänänen (1) , Peter Westerholm (22) , Hugo Westerlund (2) , Marie Zins (6) , Jane E Ferrie (23, 8) , Archana Singh-Manoux (8, 6) , G David Batty (8, 23) , Mika Kivimäki (8)

1 Finnish Institute of Occupational Health
2 Stress Research Institute
3 School of Health Science
4 Institute of Environmental Medicine
5 National Research Centre for the Working Environment
6 CESP - Centre de recherche en épidémiologie et santé des populations
7 Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
8 Department of Epidemiology and Public Health
9 BAuA - Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
10 Institute for Medical Informatics, Biometry, and Epidemiology
11 TNO - The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research
12 Department of Health Sciences
13 Department of Public Health
14 School of Sociology, Social Policy, & Social Work
15 Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Occupational and Environmental Medicine
16 Finnish Institute of Occupational Health
17 Department of psychology
18 Department of Psychology
19 Department of Public Health [Copenhagen]
20 Department of Public Health
21 Folkhälsan Research Center
22 Occupational and Environmental Medicine
23 Centre for Cognitive Ageing & Cognitive Epidemiology

To investigate whether work related stress, measured and defined as job strain, is associated with the overall risk of cancer and the risk of colorectal, lung, breast, or prostate cancers. Meta-analysis of pooled prospective individual participant data from 12 European cohort studies including 116,056 men and women aged 17-70 who were free from cancer at study baseline and were followed-up for a median of 12 years. Work stress was measured and defined as job strain, which was self reported at baseline. Incident cancers (all n=5765, colorectal cancer n=522, lung cancer n=374, breast cancer n=1010, prostate cancer n=865) were ascertained from cancer, hospital admission, and death registers. Data were analysed in each study with Cox regression and the study specific estimates pooled in meta-analyses. Models were adjusted for age, sex, socioeconomic position, body mass index (BMI), smoking, and alcohol intake A harmonised measure of work stress, high job strain, was not associated with overall risk of cancer (hazard ratio 0.97, 95% confidence interval 0.90 to 1.04) in the multivariable adjusted analyses. Similarly, no association was observed between job strain and the risk of colorectal (1.16, 0.90 to 1.48), lung (1.17, 0.88 to 1.54), breast (0.97, 0.82 to 1.14), or prostate (0.86, 0.68 to 1.09) cancers. There was no clear evidence for an association between the categories of job strain and the risk of cancer. These findings suggest that work related stress, measured and defined as job strain, at baseline is unlikely to be an important risk factor for colorectal, lung, breast, or prostate cancers.

Domaines: Santé publique et épidémiologie

Katriina Heikkilä, Solja T Nyberg, Töres Theorell, Eleonor I Fransson, Lars Alfredsson, et al.. Work stress and risk of cancer: meta-analysis of 5700 incident cancer events in 116,000 European men and women.. BMJ / BMJ (CLINICAL RESEARCH ED); Br Med J; British Medical Journal; Brit Med J, 2012, 346, pp.f165. ⟨10.1136/bmj.f165⟩. ⟨inserm-01153694⟩