Do Passive Jobs Contribute to Low Levels of Leisure-Time Physical Activity?
Background: There is mixed evidence on the association between psychosocial work exposures (i.e., passive jobs) and physical activity, but previous studies did not take into account the effect of cumulative exposures nor did they examine different trajectories in exposure. We investigated whether exposure to passive jobs, measured three times over an average of five years, is associated with leisure-time physical activity (LTPA). Methods: Data were from working men (n=4294) and women (n=1791) aged 35 to 55 who participated in the first three phases of the Whitehall II prospective cohort. Exposure to passive jobs was measured at each phase and LTPA at phases 1 and 3. Participants were categorized according to whether or not they worked in a passive job at each phase, leading to a scale ranging from 0 (non-passive job at all three phases) to 3 (passive job at all three phases). Poisson regression with robust variance estimates were used to assess the prevalence ratios of low LTPA. Result
