ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Occupational Health and Safety
The dose-response relationship between working hours and incidence of hypertension in construction workers: evidence from Wuhan, China
Provisionally accepted
- 1Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
- 2Wuhan Prevention and Treatment Center for Occupational Diseases, Wuhan, China
- 3Women’s Hospital School of Medicine Zhejiang University, Chongqing, China
- 4Chongqing Qijiang District Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Chongqing, China
- 5Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
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Background: The rapid urban expansion and renewal in China have led to increasing workload and intensity for construction workers. Prolonged working hours result in builders not having enough time to recover, which may be associated with higher susceptibility to occupational injuries and chronic diseases. This study aimed to explore the dose-response relationship between the weekly working hours and hypertension among construction workers . Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out from June to July 2022 in Wuhan, China. A stratified cluster random sampling method was used, and all construction workers on site were invited to participate. Unconditional logistic regression model and restricted cubic spline (RCS) models were utilized to evaluate the dose-response relationship between weekly working hours and hypertension. Subgroup and sensitivity analysis were conducted to assess the robustness of the results. Results: A total of 750 construction workers were included in our study, with a hypertension prevalence of 18.00 %. Worker with hypertension reported longer weekly working hours (67.64±12.70 hours/week) than those without hypertension (59.72 ± 12.81 hours/week). The odds of prevalent hypertension were 4.22 (95% CI=2.10-8.49) and 4.90 (95% CI=2.26-10.64) times higher in the Q3 (66-70 hours/week) and Q4 (71-140 hours/week) groups than in the Q1 (10-54 hours/week) group, respectively. The RCS analysis showed a non-linear dose-response relationship between weekly working hours and hypertension (Pnon-linear< 0.05), the results were consistent across subgroups. Conclusion: In this cross-sectional study, longer weekly working hours were associated with higher odds of hypertension among construction workers.
Keywords: Hypertension, Construction workers, Dose-response relationship, Restricted cubic spline, Occupational Health
Received: 27 Aug 2025; Accepted: 19 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Zhu, Chen, Liang, Yang, Tan and Jiang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xiaodong Tan, 00300469@whu.edu.cn
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