Abstract
BackgroundObesity is associated with increased morbidity, occupational injuries, and premature mortality. Obesity also disproportionately affects blacks and socioeconomically disadvantaged workers. However, few studies have evaluated national trends of obesity by employment industry overall and especially by race.MethodsTo investigate national trends of obesity by employment industry overall and by race, we estimated the age-standardized obesity prevalence from 2004 to 2011. We used direct age-standardization with the 2000 US Census population as the standard among 136,923 adults in the US National Health Interview Survey. We also estimated prevalence ratios (PRs) for obesity in black women and men compared to their white counterparts for each employment industry using adjusted Poisson regression models with robust variance.ResultsObesity prevalence increased for men and women over the study period across all employment industry categories, and the healthcare industry had the highest overall age-standardized prevalence (30 %). Black women had a significantly higher obesity prevalence than white women across all employment industry categories, ranging from 33 % (95 % confidence interval (CI): 1.16,1.52) in Professional/Management to 74 % in Education (95 % CI: 1.56,1.93). Obesity prevalence was higher among black than white men for Healthcare (PR = 1.39 [1.15,1.69]), Education (PR = 1.39 [1.17,1.67]), Public Administration (PR = 1.34 [1.20,1.49]), and Manufacturing (PR = 1.19 [1.11,1.27]). Differences in obesity prevalence by race were generally widest in professional/management occupations.ConclusionsObesity trends varied substantially overall as well as within and between race-gender groups across employment industries. These findings demonstrate the need for further investigation of racial and sociocultural disparities in the work-obesity relationship to employ strategies designed to address these disparities while improving health among all US workers. Further research and interventions among workers in industries with an increasing or high prevalence of obesity should be prioritized.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40608-016-0100-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Obesity is associated with increased morbidity, occupational injuries, and premature mortality
Obesity prevalence and trends by industry of employment Participants employed in the healthcare industry had the highest overall age-standardized prevalence of obesity (32 %), while those in the education industry had the lowest (26 %)
Women had a high prevalence for health care and food/accommodation services, while men in the education sector experienced the greatest increase in obesity prevalence over time
Summary
Obesity is associated with increased morbidity, occupational injuries, and premature mortality. A leading public health problem, is associated with an increased risk of multiple chronic conditions including hypertension, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, certain cancers (e.g. breast), depression and lower quality of life, disability as well as premature mortality [1,2,3,4]. US adults who are full-time employees spend approximately one third of their waking hours at work [5], and there is increasing evidence that adverse working conditions can impact obesity risk [6, 7]. Studies suggest adults in certain occupations are more likely to be obese, and obesity—in addition to poor health outcomes—is associated with increased occupational. There are indirect effects of occupation on Jackson et al BMC Obesity (2016) 3:20 obesity because of income disparities that affect the ability to, for example, afford healthy nutrition [24, 25]
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