Explaining occupational class differences in sickness absence: results from middle-aged municipal employees.
Objectives Low socioeconomic position is consistently associated with higher rates of sickness absence. We aimed to examine whether working conditions, health-related behaviours and family-related factors explain occupational class differences in medically certified sickness absence. Methods The stu...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health Vol. 64; no. 9; pp. 802 - 808 |
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| Autores principales: | , , , , |
| Formato: | research tables/charts Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
BMJ Publishing Group
Sep2010
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=104955973&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 104955973 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 0143005X C0H jtl: Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health issn: 0143005X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2010 vid: 64 iid: 9 pid: 8280 pub: BMJ Publishing Group artinfo: ui: 104955973 55562119 10.1136/jech.2009.093385 NLM19778907 104955973 ppf: 802 ppct: 6 formats: tig: atl: Explaining occupational class differences in sickness absence: results from middle-aged municipal employees. aug: au: Laaksonen M Piha K Rahkonen O Martikainen P Lahelma E affil: Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland sug: subj: Sick Leave Occupations and Professions Classification Socioeconomic Factors Urban Areas Government Human Funding Source Middle Age Work Environment Health Behavior Family Male Female Smoking Complications Body Weight Confidence Intervals Odds Ratio Data Analysis Software Adult Middle Aged: 45-64 years Adult: 19-44 years Male Female ab: Objectives Low socioeconomic position is consistently associated with higher rates of sickness absence. We aimed to examine whether working conditions, health-related behaviours and family-related factors explain occupational class differences in medically certified sickness absence. Methods The study included 5470 women and 1464 men employees of the City of Helsinki, surveyed in 2000-2002. These data were prospectively linked to sickness absence records until the end of 2005, providing a mean follow-up time of 3.9 years. Poisson regression was used to examine the occurrence of medically certified sickness absence episodes lasting 4 days or more. Results Medically certified sickness absence was roughly three times more common among manual workers than among managers and professionals in both women and men. Physical working conditions were the strongest explanatory factors for occupational class differences in sickness absence, followed by smoking and relative weight. Work arrangements and family-related factors had very small effects only. The effects of psychosocial working conditions were heterogeneous: job control narrowed occupational class differences in sickness absence while mental strain and job demands tended to widened them. Overall, the findings were quite similar in women and men. Conclusions Physical working conditions provided strongest explanations for occupational class differences in sickness absence. Smoking and relative weight, which are well-known determinants of health, also explained part of the excess sickness absence in lower occupational classes. Applying tailored work arrangements to employees on sick leave, reducing physically heavy working conditions and promoting healthy behaviours provide potential routes to narrow occupational class differences in sickness absence. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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