The pandemic storm has imposed radical changes in the work activities of a large part of the Western population. Home Working, or Smart Working, has become a reality for millions of people. This new condition has found us largely unprepared and has led to profound changes in the habits and lifestyle of most of the workers.
Several clinical studies, conducted by leading international scientific institutions, show that working from home can lead to significant and potentially unfavorable changes in general health indices. This is even more evident for the cardiovascular health.
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Weight gain
The surveys conducted on thousands of workers forced into the so-called Smart Working show, in fact, that domestic work is associated, at least in 60-80% of cases, with a consistent reduction in physical activity andeating higher calorie meals. The result is an average and a significant increase in body weight increase in the incidence of all obesity indices.
Mood
However, other aspects also take on particular significance. In fact, the new ways of working lead to one reduction of social interactions and frequent deterioration of the quality of communication with work colleagues, also due to the possible inadequacy of the technical means available, complained in over 60% of cases. The result is a frequent depression of the relative indices of the general tone of mood (at least 60% of cases), combined with the difficulty in reconciling domestic activities with work, especially in the presence of cohabiting children in childhood. In confirmation of what has been reported, an increase in the consumption of cigarettes and other tobacco products is also reported.
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Performance
As regards the “work” itself, it should be noted that often, especially in large companies or in the public sector, the overall quality of work performance is perceived by workers as lower than the usual pre-pandemic standards, also due to the possible “Distractions” deriving from the home environment or due to the poor performance of the equipment available.
Finally, it appears that all the problems described above are more frequent and of greater importance in workers with lower levels of education and wages and, above all, of greater impact in women than in men.
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The scenario briefly described emerges strongly from a consistent number of clinical studies, which agree in outlining a not fully favorable overall effect of working “from home” on the psycho-physical well-being of workers.
As for workers with cardiovascular risk factors, such as arterial hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes mellitus, domestic confinement has caused unfavorable effects. Many did not have access to scheduled clinical checks and reduced or suspended part of drug therapy, as confirmed by the significant reduction in the consumption of drugs for the cardiovascular system reported for 2020 by Farmindustria.
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Ultimately, working “from home” can lead in many cases to a possible deterioration of the cardiovascular risk profile. The individual worker is more dissatisfied, smokes more, moves less and sees their body weight increase. And if he has some cardiovascular health problems, unfortunately, he seems to manage it much less well than before.
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Where will all this lead us?
In 2020, the total number of deaths is the highest ever recorded in our country since World War II: 746,146 deaths, over 100 thousand more than the average for the years 2015-2019 (official ISTAT data of March 2021). Approximately 70% of deaths in excess of the past are attributable with reasonable certainty to COVID-19; the remaining 30% can be explained as mortality deriving from undiagnosed COVID cases, but also, in significant part, from deaths attributable to other non-COVID pathologies inadequately managed in the pandemic phase (myocardial infarction, stroke, heart failure, severe of cancer).
Impact of the pandemic and future scenarios
In fact, the premises are not reassuring. As mentioned, the general indicators of health in those who work from home show critical elements. This leaves us having to foresee some awareness, information and training campaigns. The remote worker must be correctly informed, must understand the risks and benefits deriving from a decidedly different way of working than in the past.
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