Working Women Are Healthier, Study Finds : Science: Report says females with jobs show less risk of heart disease. Researcher says it should ease fears that they will get same work-related ailments as males.

SAN DIEGO —  Women who work outside the home enjoy better health than women who stay home, according to a long-term study by UC San Diego researchers scheduled to be published today.

The study showed that working women had 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, when the women were between 40 and 59, and again in follow-up visits between 1984 and 1987. The study is to be published today in the American Journal of Public Health.

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 L. 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 in men and women, Wingard said. It was not until 1988 that researchers had put the data about working women and homemakers in useful form, she said. It took until this year to get it published, she added.

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, she said.

Of the 242, 129 worked outside the home and 113 stayed at home, she said. All the women are white and enjoy a middle- to upper-class lifestyle, she said.

The bulk of the working women, 76%, were managers, business owners, professionals or executives, Wingard said. Of the rest, 8% were secretaries and 16% 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.

Though researchers studied only white women, Wingard said the results should be the same for any middle- to upper-class groups, regardless of race.

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.

Or, she said, the satisfaction of doing a job well gives working women a psychological bonus that translates into physical well-being.

It is possible, she said, that working outside the home gives women access to others who can share the burden when things go wrong, reducing their tension and stress level.

It will take another study to figure out the answer, Wingard said.

Researchers who performed the study with Wingard were Donna Kritz-Silverstein and Elizabeth Barrett-Connor. All are epidemiologists.