ArticleThe Lancet regional health. Europe2021
Long working hours and risk of 50 health conditions and mortality outcomes: a multicohort study in four European countries.
Article in The Lancet regional health. Europe, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Heat Stress Prevention and Management in the Construction Industry: A Gap Analysis.Annals of global health · 2025Pooled it
- Explainable Machine Learning for Concurrent Screening of Elevated Work-Related Fatigue Using Routine Working-Hour and Occupational Health Data Among Manufacturing Workers: A Cross-Sectional Model Development and Internal Validation Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Associations of weekly working hours with biological aging and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality: the role of lifestyle.Journal of occupational medicine and toxicology (London, England) · 2026Article
- Long working hours and mortality outcomes: A systematic review with outcome-specific evidence synthesis.iScience · 2026Article
- Cardiac cost of occupational stress among obstetricians: a cross-sectional non-invasive haemodynamic study in a tertiary hospital.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Association between working ≥10 hours per day and satisfaction with work environment among wage workers in Korea: a cross-sectional study using data from the 7th Korean Working Conditions Survey.Annals of occupational and environmental medicine · 2026Article
- Enacting Domestic Worker Bills of Rights: A Quasi-experimental Analysis of Impacts on Domestic Workers' Working Hours and Earnings.New solutions : a journal of environmental and occupational health policy : NS · 2026Article
- Chronic emotional stress and mediating role of Interleukin-6 in the association with cardiometabolic disorders in a multiethnic middle-aged and older US population.International journal of cardiology. Cardiovascular risk and prevention · 2025Article
- Trends and determinants of adverse working conditions among employed women in Australia: a 20-year analysis.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Occupational stress and its adverse health effects among metal mining workers: a cross-sectional study in China.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Work time reduction via a 4-day workweek finds improvements in workers' well-being.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Shift Work, Sleep, Chronic Fatigue, and Mental Health Among Hotel Workers.Western journal of nursing research · 2025Article
- The associations of long working hours and unhealthy diet with cardiometabolic outcomes and mortality in US workers.Preventive medicine · 2025Article
- Overwork and changes in brain structure: a pilot study.Occupational and environmental medicine · 2025Article
- Healthy lifestyle habits, educational attainment, and the risk of 45 age-related health and mortality outcomes in the UK: A prospective cohort study.The journal of nutrition, health & aging · 2025Article
- Psychosocial work determinants of older adults' participation in the job market: protocol for a scoping review of quantitative longitudinal studies.Systematic reviews · 2025Article
- The Impact of Night Shifts, Tobacco Dependence, Health Awareness, and Depression Risk on Chronic Disease Risk Among Generation Z Overtime Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Research advances inAnimal nutrition (Zhongguo xu mu shou yi xue hui) · 2025Review
- Long working hours and cardiovascular disease mortality: Prospective evidence from the United States.Preventive medicine · 2025Article
- Positive relationship between Work-to-Sleep hours Ratio and obesity: a cross-sectional study, evidence from NHANES 2017-2023.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
23 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundStudies on the association between long working hours and health have captured only a narrow range of outcomes (mainly cardiometabolic diseases and depression) and no outcome-wide studies on this topic are available. To achieve wider scope of potential harm, we examined long working hours as a risk factor for a wide range of disease and mortality endpoints.
methodsThe data of this multicohort study were from two population cohorts from Finland (primary analysis, n=59 599) and nine cohorts (replication analysis, n=44 262) from Sweden, Denmark, and the UK, all part of the Individual-participant Meta-analysis in Working Populations (IPD-Work) consortium. Baseline-assessed long working hours (≥55 hours per week) were compared to standard working hours (35-40 h). Outcome measures with follow-up until age 65 years were 46 diseases that required hospital treatment or continuous pharmacotherapy, all-cause, and three cause-specific mortality endpoints, ascertained via linkage to national health and mortality registers.
findings2747 (4·6%) participants in the primary cohorts and 3027 (6·8%) in the replication cohorts worked long hours. After adjustment for age, sex, and socioeconomic status, working long hours was associated with increased risk of cardiovascular death (hazard ratio 1·68; 95% confidence interval 1·08-2·61 in primary analysis and 1·52; 0·90-2·58 in replication analysis), infections (1·37; 1·13-1·67 and 1·45; 1·13-1·87), diabetes (1·18; 1·01-1·38 and 1·41; 0·98-2·02), injuries (1·22; 1·00-1·50 and 1·18; 0·98-1·18) and musculoskeletal disorders (1·15; 1·06-1·26 and 1·13; 1·00-1·27). Working long hours was not associated with all-cause mortality.
interpretationFollow-up of 50 health outcomes in four European countries suggests that working long hours is associated with an elevated risk of early cardiovascular death and hospital-treated infections before age 65. Associations, albeit weak, were also observed with diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders and injuries. In these data working long hours was not related to elevated overall mortality.
fundingNordForsk, the Medical Research Council, the National Institute on Aging, the Wellcome Trust, Academy of Finland, and Finnish Work Environment Fund.
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