Socioeconomic status and sick leave granted for mental and somatic disorders: a prospective study of young adult twins

BMC Public Health

Ted Reichborn-Kjennerud²  Kenneth S Kendler³  Gun Peggy Knudsen¹  Ragnhild Ørstavik¹  Espen Røysamb⁴  Kristian Tambs¹  Nikolai Czajkowski⁴  Eivind Ystrom¹  Fartein Ask Torvik¹ 

[1] Division of Mental Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo 0403, Nydalen, Norway;Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Postbox 1171 Blindern, Oslo 0316, Norway;Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond 23298-0126, VA, USA;Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Postbox 1049 Blindern, Oslo 0317, Norway

关键词: Norway;    Twin study;    Health inequalities;    Income;    Education;    Sick leave;   

Others  :  1122770
DOI  :  10.1186/s12889-015-1457-3

 received in 2014-09-10, accepted in 2015-01-23,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

Low socioeconomic status (SES), indicated by low income and education, has consistently been found to be a strong predictor of sick leave. Several possible pathways from SES to sick leave have been described in previous literature, but there are also evidence indicating that the association can be confounded by common underlying factors. This study utilizes a population-based sample of employed young adult twins to estimate (i) the degree to which education and income are prospectively related to sick leave granted for mental, somatic, and any disorder, and (ii) whether these associations are confounded by familial factors.

Methods

Registry data on educational attainment and income at age 30 and subsequent sick leave were available for 6,103 employed young adult twins, among which there were 2,024 complete twin pairs. The average follow-up time was 6.57 years. Individual-level associations and fixed effects within twin pairs were estimated.

Results

Low education and income were associated with sick leave granted for both mental and somatic disorders, and with sick leave granted for any disorder. Associations were attenuated within dizygotic twin pairs and reduced to non-significance within monozygotic twin pairs, suggesting influence of familial factors on the associations between SES and sick leave.

Conclusions

Low SES is associated with a higher level of sick leave granted for both mental and somatic disorders among young adults, but these associations are confounded by factors that are common to co-twins. Education and income are therefore not likely to strongly affect sick leave in young adulthood.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Torvik et al.; licensee BioMed Central.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

【 参考文献 】

• [1]OECD: Sickness, Disability and Work: Breaking the Barriers. OECD Publishing, Paris; 2010.
• [2]Bryngelson A: Long-term sickness absence and social exclusion. Scand J Public Health 2009, 37:839-45.
• [3]Allebeck P, Mastekaasa A: Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care (SBU). Chapter 5. Risk factors for sick leave - general studies. Scand J Public Health 2004, 63(Suppl):49-108.
• [4]Melchior M, Krieger N, Kawachi I, Berkman LF, Niedhammer I, Goldberg M: Work factors and occupational class disparities in sickness absence: findings from the GAZEL cohort study. Am J Public Health 2005, 95:1206-12.
• [5]Hansen H-T, Ingebrigtsen T: Social class and sickness absence in Norway. Acta Sociol 2008, 51:309-27.
• [6]Christensen KB, Labriola M, Lund T, Kivimäki M: Explaining the social gradient in long-term sickness absence: a prospective study of Danish employees. J Epidemiol Community Health 2008, 62:181-3.
• [7]Robroek SJW, van Lenthe FJ, Burdorf A: The role of lifestyle, health, and work in educational inequalities in sick leave and productivity loss at work. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 2013, 86:619-27.
• [8]Löve J, Hensing G, Holmgren K, Torén K: Explaining the social gradient in sickness absence: a study of a general working population in Sweden. BMC Public Health 2013, 13:545. BioMed Central Full Text
• [9]Marmot MG, Smith GD, Stansfeld S, Patel C, North F, Head J, et al.: Health inequalities among British civil servants: the Whitehall II study. Lancet 1991, 337:1387-93.
• [10]Adler NE, Ostrove JM: Socioeconomic status and health: what we know and what we don’t. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1999, 896:3-15.
• [11]Østby KA, Ørstavik RE, Knudsen AK, Reichborn-Kjennerud T, Mykletun A: Health problems account for a small part of the association between socioeconomic status and disability pension award. Results from the Hordaland Health Study. BMC Public Health 2011, 11:12. BioMed Central Full Text
• [12]Kristensen TR, Jensen SM, Kreiner S, Mikkelsen S: Socioeconomic status and duration and pattern of sickness absence. A 1-year follow-up study of 2331 hospital employees. BMC Public Health 2010, 10:643. BioMed Central Full Text
• [13]Steers RM, Rhodes SR: Major influences on employee attendance: a process model. J Appl Psychol 1978, 63:391-407.
• [14]Kraus MW, Tan JJX, Tannenbaum MB: The social ladder: a rank-based perspective on social class. Psychol Inq 2013, 24:81-96.
• [15]Mendelson T, Thurston RC, Kubzansky LD: Affective and cardiovascular effects of experimentally-induced social status. Health Psychol 2008, 27:482-9.
• [16]Stringhini S, Sabia S, Shipley M, Brunner E, Nabi H, Kivimaki M, et al.: Association of socioeconomic position with health behaviors and mortality. JAMA 2010, 303:1159-66.
• [17]Laaksonen M, Piha K, Rahkonen O, Martikainen P, Lahelma E: Explaining occupational class differences in sickness absence: results from middle-aged municipal employees. J Epidemiol Community Health 2010, 64:802-7.
• [18]Clougherty JE, Souza K, Cullen MR: Work and its role in shaping the social gradient in health. Ann N Y Acad Sci 2010, 1186:102-24.
• [19]Peter R, Siegrist J: Chronic work stress, sickness absence, and hypertension in middle managers: general or specific sociological explanations? Soc Sci Med 1997, 45:1111-20.
• [20]Godin I, Kittel F: Differential economic stability and psychosocial stress at work: associations with psychosomatic complaints and absenteeism. Soc Sci Med 2004, 58:1543-53.
• [21]Johnson W, Deary IJ, Silventoinen K, Tynelius P, Rasmussen F: Family background buys an education in Minnesota but not in Sweden. Psychol Sci 2010, 21:1266-73.
• [22]Branigan AR, McCallum KJ, Freese J: Variation in the heritability of educational attainment: an international meta-analysis. Soc Forces 2013, 92:109-40.
• [23]Björklund A, Jäntti M, Solon G: Chapter 4. Influences of Nature and Nurture on Earnings Variation: A Report on a Study of Various Sibling Types in Sweden. In Unequal Chances Family Background and Econonomic Success. Edited by Bowles S, Gintis H, Groves MO. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey; 2005:145-64.
• [24]Gjerde LC, Knudsen GP, Czajkowski N, Gillespie N, Aggen SH, Røysamb E, et al.: Genetic and environmental contributions to long-term sick leave and disability pension: a population-based study of young adult Norwegian twins. Twin Res Hum Genet 2013, 16:759-66.
• [25]Svedberg P, Ropponen A, Alexanderson K, Lichtenstein P, Narusyte J: Genetic susceptibility to sickness absence is similar among women and men: findings from a Swedish twin cohort. Twin Res Hum Genet 2012, 15:642-8.
• [26]Bratberg E, Nilsen ØA, Vaage K: Assessing the Intergenerational Correlation in Disability Pension Recipiency. Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen, Norway; 2013.
• [27]Carlin JB, Gurrin LC, Sterne JA, Morley R, Dwyer T: Regression models for twin studies: a critical review. Int J Epidemiol 2005, 34:1089-99.
• [28]McGue M, Osler M, Christensen K: Causal inference and observational research: the utility of twins. Perspect Psychol Sci 2010, 5:546-56.
• [29]Lindahl M: Estimating the Effect of Income on Health and Mortality Using Lottery Prizes as Exogenous Source of Variation in Income. 2002.
• [30]Leventhal T, Brooks-Gunn J: The neighborhoods they live in: The effects of neighborhood residence on child and adolescent outcomes. Psychol Bull 2000, 126:309-37.
• [31]Mackenbach JP: Genetics and health inequalities: hypotheses and controversies. J Epidemiol Community Health 2005, 59:268-73.
• [32]Goldman N: Social inequalities in health disentangling the underlying mechanisms. Ann N Y Acad Sci 2001, 954:118-39.
• [33]Fujiwara T, Kawachi I: Is education causally related to better health? A twin fixed-effect study in the USA. Int J Epidemiol 2009, 38:1310-22.
• [34]Osler M, McGue M, Christensen K: Socioeconomic position and twins’ health: a life-course analysis of 1266 pairs of middle-aged Danish twins. Int J Epidemiol 2007, 36:77-83.
• [35]Roberts BW, Kuncel NR, Shiner R, Caspi A, Goldberg LR: The power of personality: the comparative validity of personality traits, socioeconomic status, and cognitive ability for predicting important life outcomes. Perspect Psychol Sci 2007, 2:313-45.
• [36]Moffitt TE, Arseneault L, Belsky D, Dickson N, Hancox RJ, Harrington H, et al.: A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2011, 108:2693-8.
• [37]Batty GD, Der G, Macintyre S, Deary IJ: Does IQ explain socioeconomic inequalities in health? Evidence from a population based cohort study in the west of Scotland. BMJ 2006, 332:580-4.
• [38]Ropponen A, Samuelsson Å, Alexanderson K, Svedberg P: Register-based data of psychosocial working conditions and occupational groups as predictors of disability pension due to musculoskeletal diagnoses: a prospective cohort study of 24,543 Swedish twins. BMC Musculoskelet Disord 2013, 14:268. BioMed Central Full Text
• [39]Ropponen A, Silventoinen K, Svedberg P, Alexanderson K, Huunan-Seppälä A, Koskenvuo K, et al.: Effects of work and lifestyle on risk for future disability pension due to low back diagnoses: a 30-year prospective study of Finnish twins. J Occup Environ Med 2012, 54:1330-6.
• [40]Samuelsson A, Ropponen A, Alexanderson K, Svedberg P, Samuelsson Å: Psychosocial working conditions, occupational groups, and risk of disability pension due to mental diagnoses: a cohort study of 43,000 Swedish twins. Scand J Work Environ Health 2013, 39:351-60.
• [41]Samuelsson Å, Alexanderson K, Ropponen A, Lichtenstein P, Svedberg P: Incidence of disability pension and associations with socio-demographic factors in a Swedish twin cohort. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 2012, 47:1999-2009.
• [42]Martelin T: Mortality by indicators of socioeconomic status among the Finnish elderly. Soc Sci Med 1994, 38:1257-78.
• [43]Harris JR, Magnus P, Tambs K: The Norwegian institute of public health twin program of research: an update. Twin Res Hum Genet 2006, 9:858-64.
• [44]Norway S: Norwegian Standard Classification of Education Revised 2000. Statistics Norway, Oslo; 2003.
• [45]Table: 05220: Average pay for all employees, full-time equivalents, by work hours, educational level and sex [Tabell: 05220: Gjennomsnittlig månedslønn for ansatte, heltidsekvivalenter, etter arbeidstid, utdanningsnivå og kjønn (avslutta serie)] [https://www.ssb.no/statistikkbanken/selectvarval/Define.asp?subjectcode=&ProductId=&MainTable=LonnArbUtdann&nvl=&PLanguage=0&nyTmpVar=true&CMSSubjectArea=arbeid-og-lonn&KortNavnWeb=lonnansatt&StatVariant=&checked=true]
• [46]WONCA: ICPC-2-R: International Classification of Primary Care. Oxford University Press, New York; 2005.
• [47]Miller P, Mulvey C, Martin N, Findings US, Miller BP: What do twins studies reveal about the economic returns to education? A comparison of australian and U.S. findings. Am Econ Rev 2010, 85:586-99.
• [48]Frisell T, Öberg S, Kuja-Halkola R, Sjölander A: Sibling comparison designs: bias from non-shared confounders and measurement error. Epidemiology 2012, 23:713-20.
• [49]Sjölander A, Frisell T, Öberg S: Causal interpretation of between-within models for twin research. Epidemiol Method 2012, 1:10.
• [50]Bhuller M, Mogstad M, Salvanes KG: Life-Cycle Bias and the Returns to Schooling in Current and Lifetime Earnings. Discussion Paper No. 666. Statistics Norway, Oslo; 2011.
• [51]Conte JM, Jacobs RR: Validity evidence linking polychronicity and big five personality dimensions to absence, lateness, and supervisory performance ratings. Hum Perform 2009, 16:37-41.
• [52]Esteban BL, Ortuño MMS, Izquierdo MG, Hernández JAR, Maldonado AL: Personality traits and sick leave in workers diagnosed with nonorganic neck pain. Span J Psychol 2012, 15:1272-82.
• [53]Ones DS, Viswesvaran C, Schmidt FL: Personality and absenteeism: a meta-analysis of integrity tests. Eur J Pers 2003, 17:19-38.
• [54]Harkonmäki K, Silventoinen K, Levälahti E, Pitkäniemi J, Huunan-Seppälä A, Klaukka T, et al.: The genetic liability to disability retirement: a 30-year follow-up study of 24,000 Finnish twins. PLoS One 2008, 3:e3402.
• [55]Narusyte J, Ropponen A, Silventoinen K, Alexanderson K, Kaprio J, Samuelsson Å, et al.: Genetic liability to disability pension in women and men: a prospective population-based twin study. PLoS One 2011, 6:e23143.
• [56]Samuelsson Å, Ropponen A, Alexanderson K, Lichtenstein P, Svedberg P: Disability pension among Swedish twins–prevalence over 16 years and associations with sociodemographic factors in 1992. J Occup Environ Med 2012, 54:10-6.