Differences in cardiorespiratory fitness, physical activity, and pulmonary function across occupational groups and educational levels: a cross-sectional study

Background Insufficient physical activity (PA) and low cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) are risk factors for lifestyle diseases, including cardiovascular diseases. Lifestyle plays a major role in shaping CRF and overall health, and professional work is an important part of this.Aims To examine associations between the type of work, industry, level of education, weekly working hours, and self-reported PA, CRF, pulmonary function using questionnaire-based assessment, submaximal exercise testing, and spirometry.Methods A survey was conducted on occupation, hours worked per week, night shift work, education, age, and gender, as well as a PA survey based on the IPAQ-SF. The Åstrand–Rhyming fitness test was used to estimate VO2max. Spirometry was performed to assess pulmonary function, with results including FVC, FEV1, and the FEV1/FVC ratio. The group consisted of 203 professionally active adults aged 40–70 (55.17% men, 39.41% blue-collar workers, mean age: 53.4).Results Blue-collar workers reported higher self-reported weekly PA (p = 0.0003), and this result was significant for men (p = 0.0003). White-collar workers had higher estimated VO2max (p = 0.0467), but when stratified by gender, only female blue-collar workers had lower values than female white-collar workers (p = 0.0142). Among industries the lowest self-reported weekly PA values were observed in male representatives of the professionals group, and the highest in agriculture and forestry workers.Conclusions Among men, blue-collar workers reported higher self-reported weekly PA than white-collar workers, with no significant differences in estimated VO2max. Among women, blue-collar workers did not report higher self-reported PA but had lower estimated VO2max than white-collar women. These differences are small and should be interpreted cautiously.