Having Supportive Co-Workers May Help You Live Longer

Having supportive co-workers may help you live longer than counterparts without, while support from the boss appears to make no difference, said researchers from Israel in a study published in the May issue of the journal Health Psychology.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University found that the link between living longer and the effect of having a supportive peer network was strongest among those aged between 38 and 43.

But when they looked at another aspect of workplace stress, they were surprised to find that having more control over one's work appears to increase the chance of living longer for men, but to decrease it for women.

For their prospective study, research leader Dr Arie Shirom, a professor in the Faculty of Management, and colleagues examined records of health exams carried out in 1988 in 820 workers referred for routing screening through their workplace health maintenance organization (HMO).

HMO is a form of managed care provided through employers, who in this study included some of Israel's largest health care, utility, finance, insurance and manufacturing companies.

The health screenings included measures of socioeconomic, behavioral, and biological risk factors, plus a measure used to assess workplace factors, called the Job-Demand-Control-Support (JDC-S) questionnaire which includes items on workload, control, decision authority, peer and supervisor social support.

In the JDC-S model, peer social support is rated high if you report that your co-workers are friendly and helpful in solving problems. Control and decision authority is rated high if you report being able to use your initiative, having opportunities to make best use of your skills, and being free decide how to go about and accomplish your work tasks.

One third of the participants were female, 80% were married with children, and 45% had at least 12 years of formal education. The sample did not include people who were referred for health screening because of suspected physical or mental health problems.

The computerized HMO records also enabled the researchers to track deaths among the 820 workers for the next 20 years, until 2008.

Using a statistical tool called Cox regression models, after adjusting for known physiological and behavioral factors captured in the records, the researchers then looked for links between the JDC-S workplace components and risk of death.

Examples of potential risk factors they were able to adjust for included levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides and glucose, body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, alcohol consumption, smoking, symptoms of depression and anxiety, and hospitalizations.