Association between lifestyle factors and dyslipidemia among railway workers under different shift work schedules / 环境与职业医学

Background Unhealthy lifestyles may constitute significant risk factors for dyslipidemia. However, limited studies focus on the association mentioned above among railway workers undertaking frequent shift work. Objective To understand the status of dyslipidemia and lifestyles among railway workers, and to investigate the association between the lifestyles of workers involved in different shift work schedules and dyslipidemia, aiming to provide a reference for the development of targeted intervention strategies against dyslipidemia in this occupational group. Methods The participants were selected from the in-service staff of a railway unit in 2021. A quota sampling approach was used to ensure the participation of at least 50% of employees from each department. Demographic and lifestyle information of the railway workers in 2021 was collected through self-administered questionnaires, while physiological and biochemical indicators were obtained through health examinations. Chi-square tests were employed to analyze the distribution of dyslipidemia among railway workers with different characteristics. Binary logistic regression was utilized to examine the associations between selected variables and dyslipidemia, and additive model was used to investigate the interaction between lifestyle and different shift work schedules on dyslipidemia. Results A total of 17392 railway workers were included in the study, and the total prevalence of dyslipidemia was 31.3%, with a higher prevalence reported among workers undertaking rotating night shifts (33.5%) and permanent night shifts (34.3%) than those with regular day work. The main adverse lifestyles among the railway workers were physical inactivity (59.6%), alcohol consumption (40.0%), and smoking (35.7%), and only 13.6% reported a healthy lifestyle. Furthermore, significant statistical differences in the prevalence of dyslipidemia were reported among workers with different lifestyles (P<0.01). After adjusting for confounding factors, smoking was a risk factor for dyslipidemia (OR=1.61, 95%CI: 1.48, 1.75), while highly active physical activity served as a protective factor against dyslipidemia (OR=0.79, 95%CI: 0.71, 0.88). In general, adopting a healthy lifestyle was associated with a decreased risk of dyslipidemia (OR=0.86, 95%CI: 0.77, 0.95). The stratified analyses based on different shift work schedules revealed a statistically significant association between smoking and dyslipidemia across various shift work occupational groups (P<0.001): regular day work, OR=1.62, 95%CI: 1.42, 1.84; rotating night shifts, OR=1.54, 95%CI: 1.35, 1.76; and permanent night shifts, OR=1.75, 95%CI: 1.40, 2.18. In regular day workers, highly active physical activity was associated with a reduced risk of dyslipidemia (OR=0.81, 95%CI: 0.69, 0.95). A similar association was observed among workers undertaking rotating night shifts (OR=0.78, 95%CI: 0.65, 0.94); furthermore, moderately active physical activity was also associated with a reduced risk of dyslipidemia in this occupational group (OR=0.85, 95%CI: 0.74, 0.97). There was no additive interaction between rotating night shifts and lifestyle with relative excess risk due to interaction (RERI), attributable proportion due to interaction (AP), and synergy index (S) of 0.18 (95%CI: −0.04, 0.41), 0.15 (95%CI: −0.04, 0.33), and 3.19 (95%CI: 0.09~110.44), respectively. There was also no additive interaction between permanent night shifts and lifestyle, with RERI, AP and S of −0.03 (95%CI: −0.43~0.37), −0.02 (95%CI: −0.35~0.31) and 0.90 (95%CI: 0.18~4.46). Further stratification of populations according to shift work schedules and lifestyles revealed that those who worked rotating night shifts and reported unhealthy lifestyles were more likely to present dyslipidemia than those who undertook regular day work and had healthy lifestyles (OR=1.27, 95%CI: 1.09, 1.48). Conclusion Railway workers present less optimistic lipid health status, and unhealthy lifestyles are prevalent among them. Those engaged in night shift work report a higher prevalence of dyslipidemia. Among workers with different shift schedules, smoking and physical inactivity are identified as the primary risk factors for dyslipidemia, and particular attention should be paid to the lipid health status of rotating night shift workers with poor lifestyles.

Research hotspots and trends in railway workers' health at home and abroad: A bibliometric analysis / 环境与职业医学

Background The development of railways has a long history, but there is limited research on the health of railway workers at home and abroad. China's high-speed railway development has attracted worldwide attention in recent years, and it is of great significance to study how to promote the health of this occupational population to ensure the safety of railway transportation. Objective To identify development trends and hotspots in the field of railway workers' health at home and abroad. Methods The research literature related to the health of railroad workers dated from January 1, 1973 to December 31, 2022 was searched using the China Knowledge Network Infrastructure (CNKI) and Web of Science Core Collection (WoS) databases. After screening and cleaning, the included literature was subjected to bibliometric analysis by applying CiteSpace 6.1R6 software to visualize and analyze literature co-citation, keyword emergence, and keyword timeline graphs, and by VOSviewer 1.6.19 to visualize and analyze country/region collaboration, keyword co-occurrence, and keyword clustering. Results During the period from 1973 until 2022, a total of 273 Chinese literature and 165 English literature were found to report studies related to the health of railway workers. The Chinese literature began to grow rapidly in 2009 and peaked in 2015, and the number of English literature published in a relatively flat state over the studied period. The country with the most papers indexed by Science Citation Index (SCI) was the United States (58 papers), which also presented the richest international collaborations. The document with the highest domestic citation frequency was published in the Chinese Journal of Mental Health in 1994, and the document with the highest SCI citation frequency was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 1994. The keyword co-occurrence analysis showed that the included Chinese literature mainly focused on health checkups, health management, hypertension, mental health, and chronic diseases and their prevalence; the included English literature focused on mortality, lung cancer, epidemiology, and diesel engine exhaust and its exposure. The analysis of emergent words showed that health management, frontline workers, and occupational stress were the topics of interest in Chinese literature in the last five years, while occupational stress, diesel exhaust emissions, and noise exposure were the topics of interest in English literature in the last ten years. The results of the timeline graph analysis suggested that the recent research directions in Chinese literature were health intervention, humanistic care, staff canteens, etc. There were few English-language articles related to this area after 2010. Conclusion The research hotspots of railroad practitioners' health will keep changing with the development of high-speed railways in countries around the world. The outstanding rise of Chinese literature issued in the last decade has been in striking contrast to the slow progress and decreasing of English literature. The Chinese literature has gradually expanded the hotspots from chronic diseases to health management, occupational stress, and sleep disorders.

Influencing factors and mechanism of high-speed railway passenger overall comfort: Insights from source functional brain network and subjective report.

Overall comfort is the priority for the high-speed railway (HSR) passengers, while its influencing factors and mechanism are not yet apparent. According to the source functional brain network and subjective report, this study revealed the potential influencing factors and mechanisms of passengers overall comfort in high-speed railway environments. Here, an ergonomics field test with 20 subjects was conducted where subjective reports and electroencephalography (EEG) were collected. The electric-source imaging and functional connectivity were used to build the source functional brain network from EEG and network indices were extracted. Statistics analysis results showed that static comfort played the most critical role in the overall comfort, followed by emotional valence, emotional arousal, aural pressure comfort, vibration comfort, and noise comfort. Thermal and visual comfort were insignificant due to the well-designed heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) and lighting system of HSR. In addition, the source functional brain network of passengers who felt uncomfortable had the higher clustering coefficient, assortativity coefficient and global efficiency, which meant greater activation of brain compared with passengers who were in a state of comfort. According to the local attributes indices analysis, most key brain regions were located in the frontal and hippocampus, which revealed emotion and spatial perception contribute to the whole comfort degradation process. This work proposed novel insights into HSR passengers overall comfort according to subjective and objective methods. Our findings demonstrate emotional regulation and seat improvements are key factors for future improvement of HSR passengers overall comfort.

[The influence of subjective comfort of working environment on occupational stress of railway station workers].

Objective: To explore the influential factors of job stress suffered by workers in railway stations, the level of job stress of were measured and subjective comfort of employees targeting to working environment were reported. Methods: In March 2019, a cluster sampling study was designed to collect the personal characteristics, job characteristics and subjective comfort degree of working environment of 432 employees in Chongqing railway stations. Meanwhile, job stress was assessed using the effort-reward imbalance scale. Chi-square test was used to compare the difference of occupational stress detection rate among different stratified factors such as occupational characteristics. Logistic regression was applied to analyze the influential factors of occupational stress. Results: The detection rate of job stress of workers in the railway stations was 31.02% (134/432) . The detection rate of job stress was higher among the divorced workers in railway stations, those earning less than 5, 000 yuan per month, those with 10-20 years' length of service, those who worked as a conductor and other workers including baggageman, station master on duty and assistant engineer (χ(2)=9.61, 14.76, 23.28, 11.06, P=0.008, 0.002, 0.000, 0.011) . The detection rate of job stress was higher among those whose working environment subjective feelings were uncomfortable, the differences were statistically significant (P<0.001) . The results showed that the occupational stress of the staff in the railway stations was influenced by their subjective feeling of air quality, noise and Space Layout (P<0.05) . The risk factors of occupational stress were air quality, noise and uncomfortable space layout (OR=0.571, 0.068, 0.441, P=0.051, 0.054, 0.007) . Conductor, other (Bellboy, Duty Station Master, assistant engineer) were the risk factors of occupational stress (OR=1.884, 2.703, P=0.065, 0.019) . The employees of station A and station B were the risk factors of occupational stress (OR=4.681, 1.811, P=0.002, 0.067) . Conclusion: The higher detection rate of job stress of workers in the railway stations is correlated with the subjective comfort degree of the working environment of the workers.

The influence of subjective comfort of working environment on occupational stress of railway station workers / 中华劳动卫生职业病杂志

Objective: To explore the influential factors of job stress suffered by workers in railway stations, the level of job stress of were measured and subjective comfort of employees targeting to working environment were reported. Methods: In March 2019, a cluster sampling study was designed to collect the personal characteristics, job characteristics and subjective comfort degree of working environment of 432 employees in Chongqing railway stations. Meanwhile, job stress was assessed using the effort-reward imbalance scale. Chi-square test was used to compare the difference of occupational stress detection rate among different stratified factors such as occupational characteristics. Logistic regression was applied to analyze the influential factors of occupational stress. Results: The detection rate of job stress of workers in the railway stations was 31.02% (134/432) . The detection rate of job stress was higher among the divorced workers in railway stations, those earning less than 5, 000 yuan per month, those with 10-20 years' length of service, those who worked as a conductor and other workers including baggageman, station master on duty and assistant engineer (χ(2)=9.61, 14.76, 23.28, 11.06, P=0.008, 0.002, 0.000, 0.011) . The detection rate of job stress was higher among those whose working environment subjective feelings were uncomfortable, the differences were statistically significant (P<0.001) . The results showed that the occupational stress of the staff in the railway stations was influenced by their subjective feeling of air quality, noise and Space Layout (P<0.05) . The risk factors of occupational stress were air quality, noise and uncomfortable space layout (OR=0.571, 0.068, 0.441, P=0.051, 0.054, 0.007) . Conductor, other (Bellboy, Duty Station Master, assistant engineer) were the risk factors of occupational stress (OR=1.884, 2.703, P=0.065, 0.019) . The employees of station A and station B were the risk factors of occupational stress (OR=4.681, 1.811, P=0.002, 0.067) . Conclusion: The higher detection rate of job stress of workers in the railway stations is correlated with the subjective comfort degree of the working environment of the workers.

[Effect of occupational stress on the mental health of railway workers].

Objective: To explore the impact of occupational stress and shift work on the mental health of railway workers and provide a scientific basis for occupational health protection. Methods: In April 2019, stratified cluster sampling method was used to select 613 railway workers from Fuzhou railway as subjects. Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) , Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) , Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) were used to investigate railway workers' occupational stress and mental health conditions. The influencing factors of railway workers' mental health were analyzed. Results: The detection rates of mental health problems, anxiety and depression of railway workers were 40.5% (248/613) , 4.4% (27/613) and 9.0% (55/613) , respectively. There were 250 railway workers with occupational stress (40.78%) . There were statistically significant differences in the total scores of SCL-90 among different groups of working age and education background (P<0.05) . And there were statistically significant differences in the SAS total scores among different groups of education background (P<0.05) . The detection rates of mental health problems and anxiety in the night shift group were higher than that in the white shift group, and the differences were statistically significant (P<0.05) . The detection rate of mental health problems in the group with occupational stress was higher than that in the group without occupational stress, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05) . Logistic regression analysis found that night shift work was the main risk factor affecting railway workers' anxiety (OR=2.38, 95%CI: 1.04-5.46, P<0.05) . The results of interaction analysis showed that compared with the non-occupational stress+white shift group, the workers in the night shift+occupational stress group had the higher risk of mental health problems and anxiety (OR=3.14, 95%CI: 1.84-5.38; OR=4.29, 95%CI: 1.36-13.54; P<0.05) . Conclusion: Night shift and occupational stress are the risk factors for the mental health of railway workers, and the interaction between night shift and occupational stress is the most harmful to the mental health of railway workers.

Health-Related Quality of Life and Associated Factors of Frontline Railway Workers: A Cross-Sectional Survey in the Ankang Area, Shaanxi Province, China.

After validation of the widely used health-related quality of life (HRQOL) generic measure, the Short Form 36 version 2 (SF-36v2), we investigated the HRQOL and associated factors of frontline railway workers in China. Ground workers, conductors, and train drivers were selected from Ankang Precinct by using a stratified cluster sampling technique. A total of 784 frontline railway workers participated in the survey. The reliability and validity of SF-36v2 was satisfactory. The physical component summary (PCS) scores of three subgroups attained the average range for the USA general population, whereas the mental component summary (MCS) scores were well below the range. Most domains scored below the norm, except for the physical functioning (PF) domain. Among three subgroups, train drivers reported significantly lower scores on MCS and six health domains (excluding PF and bodily pain (BP)). After controlled confounders, conductors had significantly higher PCS and MCS scores than ground workers. There is heterogeneity on risk factors among three subgroups, but having long or irregular working schedules was negatively associated with HRQOL in all subgroups. SF-36v2 is a reliable and valid HRQOL measurement in railway workers in China. The frontline railway workers' physical health was comparative to American norms, whilst mental health was relatively worse. Long or irregular working schedules were the most important factors.