Long-term exposure to heavy physical work, disability pension due to musculoskeletal disorders and all-cause mortality: 20-year follow-up—introducing Helsinki Health Study job exposure matrix

PURPOSE: We developed a job exposure matrix (JEM) to study the association between long-term exposure to heavy physical effort or heavy lifting and carrying at work with disability pension due to musculoskeletal disorders and premature all-cause mortality. METHODS: Exposure to heavy physical effort at work during 1996–2005 was estimated with JEM developed for this study population, where the exposure was based on occupational titles of the participants. We included all employees of the City of Helsinki, Finland, who had annual data of exposure for 8–10 years (1996–2005, n = 18387). The outcome variables were register-based, and the follow-up was from 2006 until 2015. The risk estimates were evaluated using competing risk survival analysis. RESULTS: There were 530 (3%) disability pension events due to musculoskeletal disorders during the 10-year follow-up. After adjustment for sex, age, education and chronic diseases, employees in the second (SHR = 1.46, 95% CI 1.05–2.05), third (SHR = 2.73, 95% CI 2.00–2.29), and the highest exposure quartile (SHR = 2.56, 95% CI 1.88–3.50) had a higher risk of musculoskeletal disability pension than employees in the lowest quartile. A total of 110 (4%) men and 266 (2%) women died during the follow-up. Men in the third quartile (SHR = 2.29, 95% CI 1.23–4.24), and women in the highest exposure quartile (SHR = 1.54, 95% CI 0.99–2.41) had a higher risk of premature mortality than those in the lowest quartile. CONCLUSIONS: Eight to ten years of exposure to heavy physical effort at work is strongly associated with disability pension due to musculoskeletal disorders. This exposure also increases the risk of premature mortality, particularly among men. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00420-018-1393-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.