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Occupational groups and lower urinary tract symptoms: A cross‐sectional analysis of women in the Boston Area Community Health Study

Objectives: The objective of this study is to inform our hypothesis that the workplace toileting environment may impact lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS); we examined the prevalence of LUTS across occupational groups in the Boston Area Community Health Survey.

Methods: At baseline, women (n = 3205) reported their occupation and frequency of 15 LUTS. Using the US Department of Labor's Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system, we categorized women into 11 standard occupational groups. Prevalence ratios (PRs) were calculated by log-link generalized linear models, adjusting for age, race, education, fluid intake, and parity. Women classified in Office and Administrative Support were used as the reference group given their potential for fewer workplace toileting restrictions.

Results: Of the 3189 women with complete data, 68% of women reported any LUTS, ranging from 57% to 82% across the SOCs. Relative to women in Office and Administrative Support (n = 576), women in Computing, Engineering, and Science (n = 64) were more likely to report any LUTS (PR = 1.2, 95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 1.0-1.4) and urinating again in <2 h (PR = 1.7, 95% CI: 1.4-2.2), and women in Education, Legal, Community Service, Arts, and Media (n = 477), as well as Healthcare Practitioner and Technical Occupations (n = 162), were less likely to report perceived frequent daytime urination (PR = 0.6, 95% CI: 0.5-0.9 and PR = 0.6, 95% CI: 0.4-0.9, respectively).

Conclusions: Our cross-sectional findings suggest that urination frequency varies across understudied occupational groups with various workplace toileting environments. Future studies should examine this relationship prospectively to inform the influence of workplace toileting environments on urination frequency, as well as the development and/or worsening of LUTS.

Alayne Markland,1 Tamara Bavendam,2 Charles Cain,3 C Neill Epperson,4 Colleen M Fitzgerald,5 D Yvette LaCoursiere,6 David A Shoham,7 Ariana L Smith,8 Siobhan Sutcliffe,9 Kyle Rudser,3 Prevention of Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms Research Consortium

  1. Division of Gerontology, Geriatrics, and Palliative Care, Department of Medicine, Birmingham Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center at the Birmingham VAMC, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.
  2. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
  3. Division of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
  4. Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colorado, USA.
  5. Division of Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University Chicago, Maywood, Illinois, USA.
  6. Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, & Reproductive Sciences, University of California, San Diego, California, USA.
  7. Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, East Tennessee State University College of Public Health, Johnson City, Tennessee, USA.
  8. Division of Urology, Department of Surgery, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
  9. Division of Public Health Sciences, Department of Surgery, Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Source: Markland A, Bavendam T, Cain C et al. Occupational groups and lower urinary tract symptoms: A cross‐sectional analysis of women in the Boston Area Community Health Study. Neurourol Urodyn. 2024 Jan;43(1):88-104. doi: 10.1002/nau.25292.