Blue-collar work and women's health: A systematic review of the evidence from 1990 to 2015

Despite the implications of gender and sex differences for health risks associated with blue-collar work, adverse health outcomes among blue-collar workers has been most frequently studied among men. The present study provides a “state-of-the-field” systematic review of the empiric evidence published on blue-collar women's health. We systematically reviewed literature related to the health of blue-collar women published between January 1, 1990 and December 31, 2015. We limited our review to peer-reviewed studies published in the English language on the health or health behaviors of women who were presently working or had previously worked in a blue-collar job. Studies were eligible for inclusion regardless of the number, age, or geographic region of blue-collar women in the study sample. We retained 177 studies that considered a wide range of health outcomes in study populations from 40 different countries. Overall, these studies suggested inferior health among female blue-collar workers as compared with either blue-collar males or other women. However, we noted several methodological limitations in addition to heterogeneity in study context and design, which inhibited comparison of results across publications. Methodological limitations of the extant literature, alongside the rapidly changing nature of women in the workplace, motivate further study on the health of blue-collar women. Efforts to identify specific mechanisms by which blue-collar work predisposes women to adverse health may be particularly valuable in informing future workplace-based and policy-level interventions.