STUDY LINKS WOMEN'S WORK, HEALTH

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 3, 1992                   TAG: 9202030080
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: SAN DIEGO                                LENGTH: Medium
STUDY LINKS WOMEN'S WORK, HEALTH
Women who work outside the home enjoy better health than women who stay home, according to a long-term study by University of California researchers scheduled to be published Tuesday in The American Journal of Public Health.
The study showed that working women had a significantly lower risk of heart disease, the nation's leading killer of women, than homemakers or women who could not find steady work.
Researchers tracked 242 white women in Rancho Bernardo, an upper-middle-class suburb north of San Diego, during clinic visits between 1972 and 1974 and again in follow-up visits between 1984 and 1987.
One of the three UC San Diego researchers who put the study together said Monday it remains unclear why working women are healthier than women at home. But, said Deborah Wingard, the study should ease fears for women in the workplace who are mindful of the stereotype that hard-driving, pressure-packed work can be dangerous, even deadly.
"For a long time, we've been told as women that when you go out and work, especially in jobs that used to be reserved for men, that that bodes poorly, that you're going to start getting diseases, like men do," Wingard said. "More heart disease. A higher risk. We've been told we shouldn't do that."
The study should prove "reassuring for women who want to work, to have the option to know it does not appear to be dangerous, and if anything, work appears to be beneficial," Wingard said.
The research grew out of a study aimed initially at assessing risks for diabetes and heart disease, Wingard said. It wasn't until 1988 that researchers had put the data in useful form, she said. It took until this year to get it published.
Each of the 242 women lived in Rancho Bernardo when the study began, Wingard said. Some have since moved away, but were included in the data. Of the 242, 129 worked outside the home and 113 stayed at home. All the women were white and enjoyed a middle- to upper-class lifestyle.
The bulk of the working women, 76 percent, were managers, business owners, professionals or executives, Wingard said. Of the rest, 8 percent were secretaries and 16 percent were administrators.
After tracking all 242 women from 1972 and 1987, researchers discovered that the working women had sharply lower total cholesterol and blood-sugar levels, two of the key indicators for heart disease, Wingard said.
Working women also had better numbers for other heart-related risk factors - including blood pressure and insulin levels - than women who stayed home, though the differences were not significantly better, UC San Diego said in a statement announcing the study.
In all, the working women had a healthier lifestyle - drinking and smoking less, weighing less and exercising more - than women at home. But, again, there was not enough statistical difference in the lifestyles of the groups to explain the results, Wingard said.
Wingard said researchers have only theories to explain why working women prove healthier.
It may be that a higher income gives working women better access to health care, exercise programs and more nutritious food, she said.
Researchers who performed the study with Wingard were Donna Kritz-Silverstein and Elizabeth Barrett-Connor. All are epidemiologists.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB