Paid time off and cardiovascular disease events: the Health and Retirement Study, 2010-2022

The United States does not guarantee universal access to employer-based paid time off. Several studies demonstrate the relationship between workplace benefits and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. The objective of our analysis was to evaluate the relationship between access to employer-based paid time off and the risk of incident CVD events in a sample of working older adults in the United States.

Our sample consisted of 5604 persons aged 50 years and older from the 2010 and 2016 longitudinal prospective cohorts of the Health and Retirement Study, a nationwide US sample. Our exposure was whether participants had access to employer-based paid time-off benefits at baseline. Our outcome was incident CVD events, including myocardial infarctions, strokes, and transient ischemic attacks. We compared rates of CVD events among persons with and without benefits.

81.5% of our sample had paid time-off benefits. In adjusted models, persons with access to paid time-off benefits had a 32% lower risk of a CVD event over 6-14 years (mean: 7.5 years) of follow-up (hazard ratio: 0.68; 95% CI: 0.49, 0.94).

Paid time-off benefits were associated with a reduced risk of CVD events among older adults in the United States.