Occupational physical activity and resting blood pressure in male construction workers

Objective This study investigated the association between occupational physical activity (OPA) and resting blood pressure in a cohort of Swedish construction workers. Methods The final sample included 241,176 male construction workers. Occupations with low OPA were foremen and white-collar workers. The most frequent occupations in the medium OPA group were electricians, pipe workers, and machine operators, and in the high OPA group woodworkers, concrete workers, and painters. Results Mixed effects models showed higher systolic and lower diastolic blood pressure with higher OPA, but the associations varied depending on the year of participation and participant age as shown by significant interaction terms (OPA*age, OPA*calendar year, age*calendar year). Age-stratified linear regression analyses showed a pattern of slightly higher systolic (1.49, 95% confidence interval: 1.08–1.90 mmHg) and lower diastolic (0.89, 95% confidence interval: 0.65–1.13 mmHg) blood pressure when comparing low with high OPA, but not among the oldest age groups. Conclusion Despite a rather large contrast in OPA, the differences in systolic and diastolic blood pressure according to OPA were small.