High cardiovascular risk in Spanish workers

Background and aims: To investigate the prevalence of high cardiovascular risk in the Spanish working population, and its distribution among different occupations and gender. Methods and results: Cross-sectional study of 309,955 workers (72.6% males, mean age 36.5 years, range 16-74 years), who underwent a routine medical check-up. Workers were classified as high, intermediate or low cardiovascular risk, according to the SCORE system. Workers with a relative risk greater than 4 were also considered as high-risk. The prevalence of high cardiovascular risk was 7.6% (95% CI 7.5-7.7) in males and 1.7% (95% CI 1.6-1.8) in females. After adjusting for age and gender, the prevalence of high cardiovascular risk was greater in workers from the Agriculture and Construction sectors than in those from Industry and Service sectors. The prevalence of high cardiovascular risk was higher in blue-collar than in white-collar occupations. Conclusions: A sizeable proportion of workers, especially blue-collar males, are at high cardiovascular risk. Knowledge of this risk for certain workers may serve as a basis for preventive strategies. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V.