Educational gradient in physiological risk factors in a workplace: a decomposition analysis of biomarkers

This study explores the educational inequality in a workplace in Japan in relation to the physiological risk factors. It investigates the difference in the prevalence rates of being overweight, hypertensive, dyslipidemic or diabetic between male employees who have undergone university education and those who have not. Combining the mandatory annual health check-up data, annual stress check survey data and personnel data (total sample size=7,428), this study conducts a decomposition analysis to identify the major contributing factors to the inequality and it measures the extent to which the observed between-group disparity is associated with the differences in observable characteristics. For all four conditions, significant disparities are observed between the groups. Between-group differences pertaining to alcohol consumption, smoking behaviours, job positions, psychological stress and family structure are the major significant contributing factors behind the between-group disparities in health. The results indicate that, along with a universal health-promoting approach, additional efforts to support less educated employees should be initiated to mitigate the health inequality.