RE: 'Need for More Individual-Level Meta-Analyses in Social Epidemiology: Example of Job Strain and Coronary Heart Disease'.

摘要

Although we read with interest the commentary by Kivimaki and Kawachi (1) on the need for more individual-level meta-analyses in social epidemiology, we do not agree with the authors that the findings in the article by Kivimaki et al. (2) resolve 3 longstanding debates in the literature on 30-year job strain and coronary heart disease (CHD), namely: 1) the relative importance of job strain components (job control and job demands) in relation to CHD; 2) differences in the association between job strain and CHD by age and sex; and 3) differences in the association between job strain and CHD by socioeconomic status (SES). First, of the 13 European cohort data sets that Kivimaki et al. used for the meta-analysis (2), only 3 had been published, whereas the remaining 10 data sets were unpublished. Data from many published cohort studies from European and non-European countries were not included. A recent review by Eller et al. (3) of studies published through February 2009 included 13 articles on cohort studies that contained information on the association between job strain and CHD, and there were at least 17 such studies in a recent review of the published literature through March 2013 that we conducted. A comprehensive meta-analysis based on all existing published and unpublished cohort data could generate better information to address the longstanding issues.