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Health behaviors and occupational stress of Brazilian civil servants living in an urban center
Author(s) -
Goston Janaina Lavalli,
Caiaffa Waleska Teixeira,
de Souza Andrade Amanda Cristina,
Vlahov David
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
american journal of industrial medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.7
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1097-0274
pISSN - 0271-3586
DOI - 10.1002/ajim.22004
Subject(s) - medicine , occupational stress , civil servants , overweight , job strain , environmental health , occupational safety and health , gerontology , job stress , poisson regression , cross sectional study , demographics , demography , multivariate analysis , obesity , job satisfaction , population , psychology , social psychology , clinical psychology , psychiatry , pathology , psychosocial , sociology , politics , political science , law
Background Occupational stress and unhealthy lifestyles are common characteristics of urban workers. The association between health behaviors and job stress of urban Brazilian civil servants was studied. Methods A cross‐sectional study included 893 workers. Health markers, the dependent variables, were: Fruit/vegetable (FV) and alcohol (A) intake, physical activity (PA), including at work (PAW), smoking (S), BMI ≥ 25 Kg/m 2 . Occupational stress, assessed by Job Stress Scale‐Brazilian version, classified employees into: High‐strain , Low‐strain , Active , and Passive. Prevalence rates and multivariate Poisson models were adopted. Results On average, employees (mean age = 40.2 years; 69.1% female) reported healthy lifestyle factors: FV (56%); PA (59.7%); S (13.3%); however, 49.4% were overweight. Compared to low‐strain, high‐strain workers reported higher PAW; passive workers lesser PA and higher PAW. After adjusting for socio‐demographics and work characteristics, the occupational stress dimensions were no longer associated to health behaviors. Conclusions Our results do not support the hypothesis of an effect for occupational stress on urban employees' health behaviors. Am. J. Ind. Med. 56:49–57, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.