Thanks to my co-authors, @hdurrington.bsky.social, Martin Rutter, James Liu, Jack Bowden and David Ray, @asthmaandlung.org.uk for funding the study and @ukbiobank.bsky.social team and participants.

The ability to reduce the risk of women developing asthma through modification of work schedules could have significant health-economic benefits, although more research in other cohorts and clinical studies is needed.

This is the first study to evaluate sex differences in the relationship between shift work frequency and asthma; an important topic from a public health perspective. This study is in the UK biobank cohort, a large cohort of over 500,000 people with linked health and employment data.

We showed that postmenopausal and premenopausal permanent night shift-workers had higher odds of moderate-severe asthma when compared to corresponding day workers, but only premenopausal females had a significant interaction between sex and shift work frequency.

Compared to women day workers, women permanent night shift workers had a higher likelihood of moderate-severe asthma (OR: 1.50 (95% CI 1.18 – 1.91)) but there was no corresponding relationship seen in men (OR 0.95 (95% CI 0.72 – 1.26)).