For how we live.
Walking pads promise movement without leaving your desk. A trial found walking while working slowed typing but did not harm cognition; a second found hourly walking cut post-meal glucose and blood pressure.
WHO and ILO estimate long hours caused 745,000 deaths in one year. The effect is real but modest per person, and clearest for stroke rather than heart disease.
A Swiss study tracking people who switched to remote work found no measurable change across 13 health outcomes. A review of pandemic homeworking found the relationship varies so much that no consensus emerged.
WHO and ILO estimate about 17% of workers face hazardous noise. Their review of whether it causes heart disease found only low-certainty signals — one for heart-attack incidence, little for stroke or blood pressure.
Leisure exercise reliably protects the heart. Physical activity done for a living shows mixed or even adverse associations — and some meta-analyses find higher mortality in men with the most physically demanding jobs.
WHO's ICD-11 lists burn-out, yet places it among reasons people contact health services, not among illnesses. It is defined strictly as a workplace phenomenon, which shapes who should be assessing it and how.
A Cochrane review found sit-stand desks reliably reduce workplace sitting, but graded the evidence low quality and could not tie it to better health. WHO backs cutting sedentary time but set no number.