Job Stress & Incidence of Coronary Events Studies

The most recent review shows a significant relationship between job strain and heart disease ..
Belkic KL, Landsbergis PA, Schnall PL, et al. Is job strain a major source of cardiovascular disease risk? Scand J Work Environ Health 2004;30:85–128.[Web of Science][Medline]
" Empirical studies on job strain and cardiovascular disease (CVD), their internal validity, and the likely direction of biases were examined. The 17 longitudinal studies had the highest validity ratings. In all but two, biases towards the null dominated. Eight, including several of the largest, showed significant positive results; three had positive, nonsignificant findings. Six of nine case-control studies had significant positive findings; recall bias leading to overestimation appears to be fairly minimal. Four of eight cross-sectional studies had significant positive results. Men showed strong, consistent evidence of an association between exposure to job strain and CVD. The data of the women were more sparse and less consistent, but, as for the men, most of the studies probably underestimated existing effects. Other elements of causal inference, particularly biological plausibility, corroborated that job strain is a major CVD risk factor."

Belgian study did not find a strong correlation between job stress and the incidence or coronary events. The authors of the study concede that .." a possible explanation for the differences between our findings and those from previous studies may be the relatively short follow-up of 3 years on average."