University of Manchester

Academic Institute

OFHS240215

To quantify relationships between shift work and asthma risks in the ‘Our Future Health’ (OFH) dataset, both by looking at health and demographics at recruitment (a cross-sectional study) and study emerging asthma cases after recruitment (a prospective study). We further wish to evaluate the impact that external sex hormones (such as oestrogen) may have; a common source of this is the oral contraceptive pill. Aims: 1. Assess relationships between shift work status and prevalent and incident asthma risks in both cross-sectional and prospective studies. 2. Assess how these relationships interact with differences in sex, age, and ethnicity. 3. In female participants, assess the impact of external hormone use (such as the oral contraceptive pill or hormone replacement therapy) and with menopause. Shift work is increasingly common in society. Using data from UK Biobank, we have shown that asthma is more common in night shift workers and females are significantly more at risk. To understand whether shift work causes asthma looking at new cases of asthma since recruitment using linked healthcare records could determine contributing factors such as the role of age, ethnicity and externally administrated sex hormones (via hormone replacement therapy or the oral contraceptive pill). Our Future Health’s larger size and greater variation in age and ethnicity compared to the UK Biobank, as well being able to link to healthcare records to identify new asthma diagnoses, make it well suited to address our objectives. We will use statistical methods, adjusted for demographic and lifestyle factors, to describe current asthma prevalence and emerging asthma incidence and how they relate to shift work frequency. Our results will have important implications for shift workers, employers and asthma guidelines. Understanding the role of sex hormones will allow better management of asthma in females. Strategies to manage this asthma risk could involve changing shift times to align better with the body clock and providing better support to control asthma symptoms during night shifts.

Our results will have important implications for shift workers, employers and asthma guidelines. Understanding at risk groups will allow better management of asthma. In particular, understanding the role of external hormones (such as the oral contraceptive pill or hormone replacement therapy) will allow better management of asthma in females. There is growing evidence to suggest that they may play a role in asthma risk and this study will add to this evidence (or provide evidence against). Strategies for managing shift-work asthma risk in at risk workers could involve changing shift times to align better with the body clock and providing better support to control asthma symptoms during night shifts.

Public Health Research

02/05/2025

28/03/2025

TRE