#0069 Effect of implementing an overwork-prevention act on working hours and overwork-related disease: A mediation analysis
The 2014 Act to Reduce Work Hours in Japan: Effect on Brain and Heart Disease
In Japan, over 60% people are known to work 35-60 hours per week. Such long working hours often take a toll on the worker’s health and have been known to cause cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases (CCVD). In 2014, the Japanese government took steps to address this issue and introduced an act that, among other things, called for a reduction in working hours as a preventive measure. It is, however, unknown how effective such a policy change has been in mitigating the risk of overwork-related CCVD.
In our study, we decided to test the hypothesis that the overwork-prevention policy helped lower the number of CCVD cases and that the reduction was due to reduced working hours following the 2014 act. To do so, we obtained the annual statistics published from 2012 to 2018 for 10 industry groups in Japan and conducted a “causal mediation analysis” to quantitatively determine the importance of working hours in mediating the effect of the 2014 Act on the rates of CCVD cases.
Our findings showed that the implementation of the 2014 Act was followed by reduced average working hours across industry groups along with a decrease in the overwork-related CCVD cases. About 78 cases of overwork-related CCVD were prevented per year due to the 2014 Act while reduced working hours accounted for 32 of them. These accounted for a decrease of 26% and 41%, respectively.
These results corroborate the findings of a similar study carried out in Taiwan about the impact of revised recognition criteria on overwork-related CCVD that also reported reduced working hours as a significant mediator, highlighting the importance of national policies in alleviating the health risks of workers. While further research is required to investigate the effects of other potential mediators, our innovative approach is suitable for consideration in future policymaking.
Link to the original journal article:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/1348-9585.12148
Title of the paper:
Effect of implementing an overwork-prevention act on working hours and overwork-related disease: A mediation analysis
Authors:
Ro-Ting Lin, Ying-Wen Liang, Masaya Takahashi, Hisashi Eguchi, Akizumi Tsutsumi, and Sheng-Hsuan Lin
