Facing People at Work May Raise Diabetes Risk, Study Finds

New Delhi: Jobs that require regular face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact with others—such as patients, customers, clients, or students—may increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a study published in Occupational & Environmental Medicine. The emotional demands and confrontations that come with these roles appear to be linked to a higher risk, especially when there is little social support from managers or colleagues.

Previous research has already linked job strain, workplace bullying, job insecurity, and an imbalance between effort and reward to a greater risk of type 2 diabetes. However, the specific effects of person-contact roles had not been thoroughly explored until now.

To investigate further, researchers used data from the Swedish Work, Illness, and Labour-Market Participation (SWIP) cohort, which includes about 5.4 million people aged 16 to 65. For this study, they focused on around 3 million adults aged 30 to 60 who were working in 2005 and had no history of diabetes.

The study examined three dimensions of person-contact roles:

General contact with people

Emotional demands, such as dealing with others’ health or personal problems

Confrontation, such as handling conflicts or difficult interactions

Researchers used job exposure data from Swedish Work Environment Surveys (1997–2013) and included 20 job roles with high exposure to these demands. These roles were in fields like healthcare, education, hospitality, transport, law enforcement, and social work.

From 2006 to 2020, 216,640 people (60% men) in the study developed type 2 diabetes. Those affected were typically older, had lower education levels, were more likely to be born outside Sweden, and had lower job control.

The study found that high exposure to emotional demands and confrontations was linked to a 20% and 15% increased risk of type 2 diabetes in men, and a 24% and 20% increased risk in women, respectively. Interestingly, the increased risk in women related to general contact disappeared after adjusting for job control.

The risks were even higher for workers with low social support in the workplace. Among women facing high emotional demands and low workplace support, the risk of developing type 2 diabetes was 47% higher.

“These findings support the idea that working in people-contact roles is stressful and can impact metabolic health,” the researchers stated.

They noted some limitations. The study used job exposure matrices, which don’t capture individual experiences or emotional responses. Also, they lacked data on participants’ full job history and lifestyle habits, which could influence diabetes risk.

Despite this, the researchers emphasized the emotional strain involved:

“With regard to having contact with people at work, there are expectations for emotional management where workers are required to express or hide emotions according to societal, occupational, and organizational norms. It is especially stressful when the displayed emotion and the genuinely felt emotion are not aligned.”

They added:

“Workers in human service occupations, such as healthcare professionals and social workers, take responsibility for the fundamental human needs of clients and witness human suffering, and in most cases, there is no reciprocity in relations with clients and patients. These are potential stressors that can result in compassion fatigue, burnout, and mental health problems among workers in such occupations.”

Biologically, the link may be explained by chronic stress affecting the neuroendocrine system, which increases cortisol production, insulin resistance, and decreases insulin sensitivity and secretion. These effects may be worsened by low social support at work.