Job strain and self-reported health among working women and men: An analysis of the 1994/5 Canadian National Population Health Survey

This paper explores the associations, for working women and men, of high st rain jobs with self-rated health in the 1994/95 Canadian National Populatio n Health Survey (NPHS). NPHS data were obtained on men (n = 4230) and women (n = 4043). aged 18-64 who answered an abbreviated version of the job cont ent questionnaire (JCQ). Using the upper and lower tertiles of psychologica l demands and decision latitude as cut points we classified workers into hi gh strain and other jobs. Self-rated health was the outcome. We used polyto mous logistic regression analyses and controlled for potential personal and home confounders; two risk parameters were estimated: for the odds of repo rting poor/fair and good health both vs. very good/excellent health. High s train work was reported by 11 %, of women and 9 % of men. After adjusting f or potential confounders, high job strain was consistently associated with worse self-rated health in both models for each gender. (C) 2001 by The Haw orth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.