Sex Differences in Occupational Physical Activity

Abstract

Strong evidence supports that participation in recreational physical activity (PA) is beneficial for health. However, PA is also derived from occupational, household and transportation-related activities, among which perhaps the most important is occupational, due to the time spent at work and that some jobs entail considerable PA. In contrast to recreational PA, the effects of occupational PA have been studied to a much lesser extent. Though, energy expenditure regardless of its source should have similar beneficial effects, certain jobs are conducted in settings that may contain hazardous exposures, whereby increasing occupational PA may actually exacerbate harmful effects.As sex differences may affect activity levels and/or the metabolism of certain chemical exposures, research should incorporate the consideration of sex and gender. We examined sex differences in occupational PA levels using data from a population-based case-control study of lung cancer conducted in Montréal, Canada (889 men, 564 women). In this study, lifetime job history was collected via in-person interviews; for each job, the main tasks conducted were also obtained. The energy expenditure for each job-related task, in units of metabolic equivalent of task (MET), was determined via expert assessment by an industrial hygienist and an exercise physiologist.In preliminary analysis, the most common jobs held by men and women included accountant, occupations related to management and administration, clerk, cleaner and waiter. Despite these occupations being mostly white collar, MET values were found to be higher in men than in women (t-test p<0.05 for: sales clerk, cleaner and hand packager). Further analysis will be conducted to compare the job profiles, based on job titles, industries and tasks, by sex.Less is known about occupational determinants of health in women than men, and understanding sex differences in occupational energy expenditure is one avenue to inform on prevention efforts.