The Effect of Long Working Hours and Overtime on Occupational Health: A Meta-Analysis of Evidence from 1998 to 2018

Kapo Wong; Alan H. S. Chan; S. C. Ngan

doi:10.3390/ijerph16122102

The Effect of Long Working Hours and Overtime on Occupational Health : A Meta-Analysis of Evidence from 1998 to 2018

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews (RGC: 21, 22, 62) › 21_Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

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Detail(s)

Original language	English
Article number	2102
Journal / Publication	International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Volume	16
Issue number	12
Online published	13 Jun 2019
Publication status	Published - Jun 2019

Link(s)

DOI	DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16122102 Final Published version
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Attachment(s)	Documents 33800493.pdf Final Published version, 1.13 MB, PDF Publisher's Copyright Statement This full text is made available under CC-BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Link to Scopus	https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85067920191&origin=recordpage
Permanent Link	https://scholars.cityu.edu.hk/en/publications/publication(74bb0ce9-a4e0-453e-ad52-995759021d6b).html

Abstract

There has been no subsequent meta-analysis examining the effects of long working hours on health or occupational health since 1997. Therefore, this paper aims to conduct a meta-analysis covering studies after 1997 for a comparison. A total of 243 published records were extracted from electronic databases. The effects were measured by five conditions, namely, physiological health (PH), mental health (MH), health behaviours (HB), related health (RH), and nonspecified health (NH). The overall odds ratio between long working hours and occupational health was 1.245 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.195–1.298). The condition of related health constituted the highest odds ratio value (1.465, 95% CI: 1.332–1.611). The potential moderators were study method, cut-point for long weekly working hours, and country of origin. Long working hours were shown to adversely affect the occupational health of workers. The management on safeguarding the occupational health of workers working long hours should be reinforced.