Commuting ‘bad for health’
It found those who used a car, bus or train as their principle way of getting to work suffered more stress, greater sickness absence, and poorer sleep than those who walked or cycled.
Researchers based their results on a public health survey of 21,000 full time workers, aged between 18 and 65, in southern Sweden.
Erik Hanssen from the division of occupational and environmental medicine at Lund University, said: “Generally car and public transport users suffered more everyday stress, poorer sleep quality, exhaustion and, on a seven point scale, felt that they struggled with their health compared to the active commuters.
“The negative health of public transport users increased with journey time.”
The study, published in the journal BMC Public Health, could not prove that commuting caused ill health, emphasised the authors, because it was only a snapshot in time and there were so many other variables at play.
They tried to account for the fact that people who commuted in different ways were likely to be drawn from different backgrounds, but the academics conceded this could be a factor in health differences.