Association between workplace social capital and systolic blood pressure among 23 173 workers at 367 small-sized and medium-sized enterprises in Japan: a cross-sectional study.

OBJECTIVES: Social capital (SC) has been shown to be inversely associated with elevated blood pressure. While SC in the workplace may also be associated with blood pressure, it has not been extensively studied. We aimed to investigate the association between workplace SC and systolic blood pressure (SBP). DESIGN: A cross-sectional study. SETTING: 367 small-sized and medium-sized companies in Japan. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 23 173 participants (15 991 males and 7182 females) aged ≥18 years. EXPOSURE OF INTEREST: SC was assessed using individual responses to eight 4-point Likert questions used in the Brief Job Stress Questionnaire. Workplace SC was assessed as the mean of individual-level responses to the SC questions from those working in the same company. OUTCOME MEASURE: Systolic blood pressure (SBP) RESULTS: A multilevel linear regression model revealed that higher workplace-level SC was linked with lower SBP (coef.=-0.53 per 1SD increment in workplace SC, 95% CI=-1.02 to -0.05) among females in the age-adjusted model, which remained statistically significant after adjusting for other covariates. After adjusting for individual-level SC, this association was attenuated and became non-significant (coef.=-0.41, 95% CI=-0.87 to 0.05), while individual-level SC was inversely associated with SBP (coef.=-0.43, 95% CI=-0.73 to -0.13). Among males, we did not find any evidence of significant inverse associations either in relation to workplace SC (coef.=-0.12, 95% CI=-0.46 to 0.21) or individual-level SC (coef.=0.19, 95% CI=-0.01 to 0.39). CONCLUSIONS: Our study findings suggested that workplace-level SC can affect SBP differently by sex.

The Association Between Age and Systemic Variables and the Longitudinal Trend of Intraocular Pressure in a Large-Scale Health Examination Cohort.

Purpose: The detailed effects of age and systemic factors on intraocular pressure (IOP) have not been fully understood because of the lack of a large-scale longitudinal investigation. This study aimed to investigate the effect of various systemic factors on the longitudinal change of IOP. Methods: There were a total of 20,909 eyes of 10,471 subjects from a health checkup cohort that were followed up for systemic factors: (i) age at baseline, (ii) sex, (iii) time series body mass index (BMI), (iv) time series smoking habits, (v) time series systolic and diastolic blood pressures (SBP and DBP), and (vi) time series 19 blood examinations (all of the time series data was acquired at each annual visit), along with IOP annually for at least 8 years. Then the longitudinal effect of the systemic factors on the change of IOP was investigated. Results: IOP significantly decreased by -0.084 mm Hg/year. BMI, SBP, DBP, smoking habits, total triglyceride, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and glycosylated hemoglobin A1c were not significantly associated with the change of IOP. Higher values of age, aspartate aminotransferase, hemoglobin, platelet, and calcium were suggested to be significantly associated with the decrease of IOP, whereas higher alanine aminotransferase, guanosine triphosphate, white blood cell count, red blood cell count, and female gender were significantly associated with the increase of IOP. Conclusions: Age, aspartate aminotransferase, hemoglobin, platelet, calcium, alanine aminotransferase, guanosine triphosphate, white blood cell count, red blood cell count, and gender were the systemic variables significantly associated with the change of IOP.