| 1. |
- Akhavan, Sharareh, 1963-, et al.
(author)
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Work-related health factors among female immigrants in Sweden – A qualitative study on a sample of twenty workers.
- 2006
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In: Italian Journal of Public Health. - 1723-7807 .- 1723-7815. ; 3:1, s. 60-67
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Aims: The purpose of this study was to explore work-related health factors amongst female immigrants in Sweden.Methods: Qualitative methods were used in order to get the broadest possible picture of female immigrants’ perceptions on work-related health factors. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty female immigrants who worked in different departments of a municipality adjacent to a large city in Sweden. Most of the interviewed women came from the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, while some came from eastern and southern Europe as well as Finland. The women had lived in Sweden for 5-27 years. Content analysis, which is based on analysis by topic, was used to analyse the data.Results: Results from the interviews show that female immigrants perceived that work-related health is strongly associated with class. The three aspects of class that arose from this study were wage, professional status and their position within the organisations hierarchy. Other factors that were identified as being associated to work-related health were discrimination due to ethnicity and gender, unfavourable physical and psychosocial work environment and lack of training opportunities for upgrading their skills.Conclusions: The public health implications of the findings in this study suggest that measures that ought to be taken to improve female immigrants working conditions and health are primarily systematic efforts to counteract discrimination because of gender and ethnicity in areas such as wage setting and opportunities for skill up-grade training. This should result in improved employment opportunities for female immigrants, particularly those who work in low status and low-paid jobs.
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| 2. |
- Fjell, Ylva
(author)
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Health promoting factors in public work places
- 2008
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In: Italian Journal of Public Health. - 1723-7807 .- 1723-7815. ; 5:1, s. 34-44
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Objectives: The main objective of this study was to explore potential health-promoting work factors and theirspecific associations with self-rated general and mental health, life satisfaction, and low levels ofmusculoskeletal pain among women and men employed in the public sector.Methods: A questionnaire based survey was conducted among 2523 public employees (87% women) in 124work places. The workplaces were distributed between five occupational sectors: the provincial hospital,schools, home care services, domestic/catering, and administrative services. The response rate was 92%.Analyses of variance were used to compare the mean scores of the groups. Spearman’s rank correlation testwas used to assess the associations between the work factors and the health measures.Results:Many of the potential health promoting work factors were associated with the measures of self-ratedhealth. However the correlations differed according to both gender and occupational sector. The maindifferences between the sectors were the characteristics of decision latitude-influence and learningdevelopmentwith the best conditions in the administrative services and schools, and the worst in home careservices. Men rated higher in decision latitude-influence than women and had significantly better“opportunities to learn new and to develop in the profession”. Having enough time to complete the worktasks had the highest overall correlation with good health. In addition good relations with and support ofsupervisors were crucial for well-being among the employees.Conclusions: The results highlight the importance of high levels of decision latitude-influence, learningdevelopment,and a fair and impartial attitude among supervisors for the promotion of good health in publicwork places.
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| 3. |
- Lindholm, C., et al.
(author)
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Income distribution and mortality in Sweden
- 2008
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In: Italian Journal of Public Health. - 1723-7807 .- 1723-7815. ; 5:4, s. 304-309
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: The hypothesis that a high income inequality on a societal level is associated with poor health outcomes has been both rejected and accepted in empirical studies. Whether the influence of economic circumstances on health operates at the individual level or societal level has important implications on policy and intervention alternatives. The objective of this study was to analyse the relationship between income inequality and mortality in Swedish municipalities and if the relationship varies depending on the mean income or on the time-lag between income inequality and mortality. Methods: The study was based on register data on mean income and income inequality (Gini coefficients) from Statistics Sweden 1982 and 1998, aggregated on the municipality level. Data on age-standardised death rates per 100,000 persons were obtained for 1983, 1988, 1993, 1998 and 2002. The analysis on 1998 was a test of the robustness of the results. Results: The relationship between high income inequality in 1982 and mortality in 1983 was negative with a similar relationship in 1998. Using latency periods, the results show a decreasing trend of mortality in relation to higher Gini coefficients. A positive relationship between Gini and mean income implies that municipalities with larger income distribution also had a higher mean income and vice versa. Conclusions: High income inequality does not have a negative effect on mortality in Swedish municipalities. The municipalities with high income inequality have also high mean income as opposed to many other countries. The income level seems to be more substantial for mortality than the income inequality.
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| 4. |
- Wamala, Sarah, et al.
(author)
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Does socioeconomic disadvantage explain why immigrants in Sweden refrain from seeking the needed medical treatment?
- 2007
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In: Italian Journal of Public Health. - : Prex SpA. - 1723-7807 .- 1723-7815. ; 4:3, s. 227-233
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: For the last 20 years, Sweden has changed from a homogeneous to multicultural society with about 20% of immigrants born in other countries. The existing Swedish studies have not shown coherent results on how access to health care services varies by ethnicity. The aim of this paper was to analyze the association between country of birth and refraining from seeking medical treatment and whether socioeconomic disadvantage modifies this association.Methods: Cross-sectional Swedish National Survey of Public Health 2004. A population-based sample comprising of 14,732 men (1,382 immigrants) and 17,115 women (1,717 immigrants) aged 21 to 84 years. Country of birth was categorised as being born in Sweden, other OECD countries or other countries (non-OECD). The main outcome was the self-reporting of refraining from seeking medical treatment during the past three months. Data was collected within a three-month period during the spring of 2004 and was based on a postal self-administered questionnaire linked to registry data from Statistics Sweden. The nonresponse rate was 37%.Main results: In spite of the fact that immigrants reported poorer health status, they were more likely to refrain from seeking medical treatment as compared to Swedish-born residents (odds for immigrants from other OECD countries were ORmen = 2.2, 95% CI 1.8-2.6 and ORwomen = 1.8, 95% CI 1.5-2.1 and forimmigrants from other countries (ORmen = 3.1, 95% CI 2.4-3.4 and ORwomen = 2.3, 95% CI 1.8-2.9). Socioeconomic disadvantage (SDI) did not explain why immigrants fromother OECD countries had increased odds for refraining fromseekingmedical treatment. However SDI explained about 20%of the increased odds for refraining from seeking medical treatment among immigrants from other (non-OECD) countries.Conclusions: Socioeconomic disadvantage does not fully explain why immigrants refrain from seeking medical treatment. Public health strategies towards the goal “care on equal terms” cannot be achieved without addressing wider socioeconomic determinants including interactions between class and ethnicity.
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| 5. |
- Hansson, Ann-Sophie, et al.
(author)
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Risk-factors for stress-related absence among health care employees : a bio-psychosocial perspective. Associations between self-rated health, working conditions and biological stress hormones
- 2006
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In: Italian Journal of Public Health. - 1723-7807. ; 3:3-4, s. 53-61
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background Stress is a major cause of sickness absence and the health care sector appears to be especially at risk. This cross sectional study aimed to identify the risk factors for absence due to self-reported stress among health care employees. Methods: 225 health care employees were categorized into two groups based on presence or not of self-rated sickness absence for stress. Questionnaire data and stress sensitive hormones measurements were used. Results Employees with stress related sick leave experienced worse health, poorer work satisfaction as well as worse social and home situations than those employees without stress-related sick leave. No-significant differences were identified regarding stress-sensitive hormones. The risk for employees, not satisfied at work, of becoming absent due to stress was approximately three fold compared to those who reported being satisfied (OR 2.8, 95% confidence interval; (CI) 1.3 - 5.9). For those not satisfied with their social situation, the risk for sickness absence appeared to be somewhat higher (OR 3.2; CI 1.2 - 8.6). Individual factors such as recovery potential and meaning of life as well as work related factors such as skill development and work tempo predicted employee’ s work satisfaction. Conclusions Based on cross sectional data, work-site and individual factors as well as social situations appear to increase the risk for absence due to stress among health care employees. Lower recovery potential, higher work tempo and poor leadership appeared to be related to the high degree of work related exhaustion experienced by employees.
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| 6. |
- Hansson, Ann-Sophie, et al.
(author)
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Risk-factors for Stress-related Absence Among Health Care Employees: A Bio-Psychosocial Perspective. Associations Between Self-rated Health, Working Conditions and Biological Stress Hormones.
- 2006
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In: Italian Journal of Public Health. - 1723-7807. ; 3:3-4, s. 53-61
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Stress is one of the major reasons for sickness absence and especially the health care sector appears to be at risk. This cross sectional study aimed to identify risk factors of absence due to self-reported stress among health care employees. Methods: 225 health care employees were categorized into two groups based on self-rated sickness absence for stress or not. Questionnaire data and stress sensitive hormones measurements were used. Results: Employees with stress related sick leave experienced their health, work satisfaction as well as their social- and home situation worse than employees without stress- related sick leave. No statistically significant differences were identified regarding stress-sensitive hormones. The risk for employees not satisfied at work to become absent due to stress compared to those with a sufficient work situation appears to be about three times higher (OR 2.8, 95% CI 1.3 - 5.9). For those not satisfied with their social situation, the risk for being sickness absent appear to be somewhat higher (OR 3.2; CI 1.2 - 8.6).Individual factors as recovery potential and meaning of life and work related factors as skill development and work tempo predicted employee’ s work satisfaction. Conclusion: Based on cross sectional data, work-site and individual factors as well as social situation appear to increase the risk for absence due to stress among health care employees. Lower recovery potential, higher work tempo and a worse leadership appeared to be related to the high degree of work related exhaustion among the employees.
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