Job Strain Tied to New Sleep Disturbances Over Time

THURSDAY, Jan. 16, 2025 (HealthDay News) — U.S. workers who report high job strain experience significantly more sleep disturbances over time, according to a study published online Jan. 8 in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.

Yijia Sun, from the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues examined longitudinal associations between job strain and sleep disturbances. The analysis included 1,721 participants in two waves of the Midlife in the United States study.

The researchers found that during an average nine years of follow-up, higher job strain at baseline was significantly associated with an increase in sleep disturbances over time. Corrected Quasi-likelihood Information Criterion scores showed that continuous Demand-Control formulations (linear, quotient, and logarithm quotient, respectively) had better model performance of 4,602.66, 4,604.28, and 4,601.99, respectively. The best fit was seen with the logarithm quotient.

“Our findings imply the importance of early workplace interventions in reducing job strain to improve sleep hygiene,” the authors write. “They further show that the continuous formulations quantifying job strain were more consistent and robust, which provides suggestions for future workplace health research in the United States.”

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