Men in stressful jobs are more than twice as likely to smoke than other workers, and those putting in longer hours can double their risk again, an Australian study shows.
New research by the University of Melbourne has drawn a stronger than ever link between stressful working environmentsand unhealthy habits.
The study compares the smoking habits of 1100 Victorian workers with their levels of job stress, number of hours worked and other employment conditions.
Study leader Dr Tony LaMontagne, from the VicHealth Centre for the Promotion of Mental Health and Community Wellbeing, found that smoking rates were closely tied to stress.
Men who work more than 50 hours a week are more than twice as likely to smoke as their counterparts working regular full-time hours, according to the study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine yesterday.
These men double their risk yet again if they have jobs which are demanding and over which they have low levels of control, Dr LaMontagne said.
Female workers were most likely to smoke if they were in a physically demanding job, indicating sex differences in job stress and its impact on smoking habits.
Explaining the link, the researcher said 70 per cent of smokers pick up the habit around the time they start working, and job stress becomes a direct barrier to quitting.
Further research was urgently needed into the effect of excessive working hours on employee behaviours, since the combination could greatly increase the risk of poor health, he said.
"Australia is one of the top three OECD countries in terms of the percentage of the population working over 50 hours a week," Dr LaMontagne said.
"The strong association between working hours and smoking in this study could be a warning to other OECD countries experiencing a growth in working hours."
VicHealth chief executive Todd Harper said "workplace health promotion programs that encourage employees to give up smoking without reducing job stress would be missing an important opportunity to promote healthy working conditions as well as healthy behaviours".
He encouraged all governments, employers and unions to consider pairing the two issues to best conquer the problems as the results were important for preventing ill-health.
