Healthy Heart Scores by Occupation

How do you determine the cardiovascular health of Americans by occupation? You measure seven different cardiovascular health metrics (not smoking, physically active, healthy diet, and normal blood pressure, blood glucose, weight, and cholesterol) of a representative sample of the population and then analyze those metrics by occupation using 2013 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data.

It's not an easy task, but the results are enlightening. Of all workers, one in ten (9.6 percent) have the poorest cardiovascular health—defined as meeting only two or fewer of the seven metrics. By occupation, community and social service workers are most likely to come up short, at 14.6 percent. Transportation and material moving workers had the second poorest performance, with 14.3 percent at greatest risk of cardiovascular disease. At the other extreme, only 5.0 percent of workers in farming, forestry, and fishing, 5.9 percent of workers in arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media, and 7.7 percent of workers in production fell into the poorest cardiovascular health category.

Source: CDC, Cardiovascular Health Status by Occupational Group—21 States, 2013