Heart Disease and Occupational Risk Factors in the Canadian Population: An Exploratory Study Using the Canadian Community Health Survey.

Background: The objective of this study is to find temporal trends in the associations between cardiovascular disease and occupational risk factors in the context of the Canadian population.

Methods: Population data were analyzed from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) collected between 2001 and 2014 for trends over time between heart disease and various occupational risk factors: hours worked, physical exertion at work, and occupation type (management/arts/education, business/finance, sales/services, trades/transportations, and primary industry/processing).

Results: We found no significant difference in the average number of hours worked/wk between individuals who report having heart disease in all years of data except in 2011 ( = 7.02,  = 0.009) and 2012 ( = 8.86,  = 0.004). We also found a significant difference in the degree of physical exertion at work in 2001 ( = 7.45,  = 0.008). There were statistically significant results of occupation type on self-reported heart disease from 2003 to 2014.

Conclusion: Canadian data from the CCHS do not exhibit a trend toward an association between heart disease and the number of hours worked/wk. There is an association between heart disease and physical exertion at work, but the trend is inconsistent. The data indicate a trend toward an association between heart disease and occupation type, but further analysis is required to determine which occupation type may be associated with heart disease.