The link between long working hours and health has been extensively studied for decades. Despite global concern regarding metabolic syndrome, however, no studies to date have solely evaluated the relationship between long working hours and that syndrome. We therefore examined the association between long working hours and metabolic syndrome in a cross-sectional study.

Social capital is hypothesized to be relevant to health promotion, and the association between community social capital and cigarette smoking has been examined. Individual-level social capital has been found to be associated with smoking cessation, but evidence remains sparse on the contextual effect of social capital and smoking. Further, evidence remains sparse on the association between smoking and social capital in the workplace, where people are spending an increasing portion of their daily lives. We examined the association between workplace social capital and smoking status among Japanese private sector employees. We employed a two-stage stratified random sampling procedure. Of the total of 1,800 subjects in 60 companies, 1,171 (men/women; 834/337) employees (65.1%) were identified from 46 companies in Okayama in 2007. Workplace social capital was assessed in two dimensions; trust and reciprocity. Company-level social capital was based on inquiring about employee perceptions of trust and reciprocity among co-workers, and then aggregating their responses in order to calculate the proportion of workers reporting mistrust and lack of reciprocity. Multilevel logistic regression analysis was conducted using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods to explore whether individual- and company-level social capital was associated with smoking. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% credible intervals (CIs) for current smoking were obtained. Overall, 33.3% of the subjects smoked currently. There was no relationship between individual-level mistrust of others and smoking status. By contrast, one-standard deviation change in company-level mistrust was associated with higher odds of smoking (OR: 1.25, 95% CI: 1.06-1.46) even after controlling for individual-level mistrust, sex, age, occupation, educational attainment, alcohol use, physical activity, body mass index, and chronic diseases. No clear associations were found between lack of reciprocity and smoking both at the individual- and company-level. Company-level mistrust is associated with higher likelihood of smoking among Japanese employees, while individual perceptions of mistrust were not associated. The link between lack of reciprocity and smoking was not supported either at the individual- or company-level. Further studies are warranted to examine the possible link between company-level trust and smoking cessation in the Japanese workplace.

Effects of the Job Stress Education for Supervisors on Psychological Distress and Job Performance among Their Immediate Subordinates: A Supervisor‐Based Randomized Controlled Trial: Soshi Takao, et al. Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmaceutical Sciences—As job stress is now one of the biggest health‐related problems in the workplace, several education programs for supervisors have been conducted to reduce job stress. We conducted a supervisor‐based randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effects of an education program on their subordinates' psychological distress and job performance. The subjects were 301 employees (46 supervisors and 255 subordinates) in a Japanese sake brewery. First, we randomly allocated supervisors to the education group (24 supervisors) and the waiting‐list group (22 supervisors). Then, for the allocated supervisors we introduced a single‐session, 60‐min education program according to the guidelines for employee mental health promotion along with training that provided consulting skills combined with role‐playing exercises. We conducted pre‐ and postintervention (after 3 months) surveys for all subordinates to examine psychological distress and job performance. We defined the intervention group as those subordinates whose immediate supervisors received the education, and the control group was defined as those subordinates whose supervisors did not. To evaluate the effects, we employed a repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Overall, the intervention effects (time × group) were not significant for psychological distress or job performance among both male (p=0.456 and 0.252) and female (p=0.714 and 0.106) subordinates. However, young male subordinates engaged in white‐collar occupations showed significant intervention effects for psychological distress (p=0.012) and job performance (p=0.029). In conclusion, our study indicated a possible beneficial effect of supervisor education on the psychological distress and job performance of subordinates. This effect may vary according to specific groups.

Exposure to air pollution has been demonstrated to increase the risk of preterm birth and low birth weight (LBW). Although evidence has accumulated on characteristics associated with increased risk of air pollution-related health effects, most studies have been conducted in the adult population and evidence on reproductive outcomes is limited. We examined whether socio-economic position (SEP) and parental characteristics (parental behavior and co-morbidity) modified the relationship between air pollution and adverse birth outcomes. Data were extracted from a perinatal hospital database based in Shizuoka, Japan. We restricted the analysis to mothers who delivered live-born single births from January 1997 to December 2010 (n = 16,615). Each birth was assigned proximity to major roads. Multivariate adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated for the outcomes of preterm birth and term LBW. We stratified subjects by individual/area-level SEP and parental characteristics. We then measured interactions on the additive scale between the respective factors and exposure. Lower SEP at both individual and area levels was associated with the increased occurrence of adverse birth outcomes. Living within 200 m from a major road increased the risk of preterm birth by 1.5 times (95% CI: 1.3-1.9) and LBW by 1.2 times (95% CI: 0.9-1.6). Mothers with lower individual SEP defined by household occupation experienced higher ORs for term LBW (OR = 3.1, 95% CI: 1.2-8.2) compared with those with higher individual SEP. In contrast, mothers who lived in the highest area-level SEP region (i.e., affluent areas) showed slightly higher point estimates compared with those who lived in middle or poor areas. In addition, maternal diabetic and hypertensive status modified the association between proximity and preterm birth, while maternal smoking status modified the association between proximity and term LBW. The present study demonstrated that air pollution is an independent risk factor for adverse birth outcomes. Mothers with lower individual SEP and mothers living in higher SEP region may be susceptible to the adverse effect of air pollution. Maternal diabetic, hypertensive, and smoking status may also increase susceptibility to this air pollution-related health effect.