Women Using Video Terminals Prone to Heart Ailments : Chest Pain Traced to Clerks’ Work

Women involved in some kinds of clerical work--especially those using video display terminals--may be more prone to heart problems than other workers because of stress and strain, two researchers reported.

Suzanne Haynes, chief of medical statistics for the National Center for Health Statistics, and Andrea Lacroix from Johns Hopkins University reached that conclusion on the basis of a long-term study in Framingham, Mass., and follow-up research in North Carolina.

Haynes said at an American Heart Assn. meeting last week that a survey of 518 members of the Communications Workers of America in North Carolina showed that one of every five women who worked on video display terminals reported suffering angina. That is twice the rate for survey respondents who do not use a terminal.

It was the way the work on the terminals was organized, not the machines themselves, that was the cause of the problem, Haynes said.

Took Detailed Look

Haynes and Lacroix first took a detailed look at women tracked for 10 years in a long-term study of heart disease development called the Framingham Study.

“Women employed in clerical jobs were significantly more likely to develop coronary heart disease over time than either white-collar women or blue-collar women,” Haynes said.

“We were concerned with this finding and at the time we couldn’t exactly explain it so we undertook two studies . . . that address the high rates among this particular group,” she said.

They found that clerical workers experience several forms of occupational stress including under-utilization of skills, lack of recognition of accomplishment, low pay, as well as a lack of control over their work environment.

Heart Disease

“Clerical workers who were classified as having high job demands and low supervision clarity . . . in that group over 30% of those women developed heart disease in the 10 years of the follow-up.

“This compares to a very low rate of heart disease in the women who had low job demand and high supervision. We’re talking about a 15-fold difference in risk of coronary heart disease.”

The researchers decided to look at the telephone company workers in North Carolina to see if they showed similar problems.

“What we found, and also postulated, was that working on the VDT (video display terminal) would exacerbate the effect.”

Telephone service operators working on computer terminals have very little control over their job situation, which puts them under a lot of stress, Haynes said.

“I call it the ultimate non-supportive boss,” she said. “The worker is asked to sit at the terminal for eight hours a day with very few interruptions. There is no contact with his or her boss. In fact, the boss can communicate with the individual either on the telephone or through the terminal.

“The employees are constantly monitored. If they make one mistake, it shows up on the computer and they can be reprimanded within five minutes of the error. This is the way the telephone company operates.”

The survey showed that in addition to reports of job stress, eye strain and backache, nearly 20% of the women who worked with VDTs said they suffered chest pains. That compared to only 10% of women not using VDTs.