| 1. |
- Gustafsson, Per E., et al.
(författare)
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Life-course accumulation of neighborhood disadvantage and allostatic load : empirical integration of three social determinants of health frameworks
- 2014
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Ingår i: American Journal of Public Health. - : American Public Health Association. - 0090-0036 .- 1541-0048. ; 104:5, s. 904-910
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- OBJECTIVES: We examined if the accumulation of neighborhood disadvantages from adolescence to mid-adulthood were related to allostatic load, a measure of cumulative biological risk, in mid-adulthood, and explored whether this association was similar in women and men.METHODS: Data were from the participants in the Northern Swedish Cohort (analytical n = 818) at ages 16, 21, 30, and 43 years in 1981, 1986, 1995, and 2008. Personal living conditions were self-reported at each wave. At age 43 years, 12 biological markers were measured to operationalize allostatic load. Registered data for all residents in the cohort participants' neighborhoods at each wave were used to construct a cumulative measure of neighborhood disadvantage. Associations were examined in ordinary least-squares regression models.RESULTS: We found that cumulative neighborhood disadvantage between ages 16 and 43 years was related to higher allostatic load at age 43 years after adjusting for personal living conditions in the total sample (B = 0.11; P = .004) and in men (B = 0.16; P = .004), but not in women (B = 0.07; P = .248).CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggested that neighborhood disadvantage acted cumulatively over the life course on biological wear and tear, and exemplified the gains of integrating social determinants of health frameworks.
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| 2. |
- Hammarström, Anne, et al.
(författare)
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Central gender theoretical concepts in health research : the state of the art
- 2014
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Ingår i: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. - : BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. - 0143-005X .- 1470-2738. ; 68:2, s. 185-190
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Despite increasing awareness of the importance of gender perspectives in health science, there is conceptual confusion regarding the meaning and the use of central gender theoretical concepts. We argue that it is essential to clarify how central concepts are used within gender theory and how to apply them to health research. We identify six gender theoretical concepts as central and interlinked-but problematic and ambiguous in health science: sex, gender, intersectionality, embodiment, gender equity and gender equality. Our recommendations are that: the concepts sex and gender can benefit from a gender relational theoretical approach (ie, a focus on social processes and structures) but with additional attention to the interrelations between sex and gender; intersectionality should go beyond additive analyses to study complex intersections between the major factors which potentially influence health and ensure that gendered power relations and social context are included; we need to be aware of the various meanings given to embodiment, which achieve an integration of gender and health and attend to different levels of analyses to varying degrees; and appreciate that gender equality concerns absence of discrimination between women and men while gender equity focuses on women's and men's health needs, whether similar or different. We conclude that there is a constant need to justify and clarify our use of these concepts in order to advance gender theoretical development. Our analysis is an invitation for dialogue but also a call to make more effective use of the knowledge base which has already developed among gender theorists in health sciences in the manner proposed in this paper.
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| 3. |
- Jonsson, Frida, et al.
(författare)
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Social capital across the life course and functional somatic symptoms in mid-adulthood
- 2014
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Ingår i: Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. - : Sage Publications. - 1403-4948 .- 1651-1905. ; 42:7, s. 581-588
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aim: To examine social capital across life and functional somatic symptoms in middle-age, according to life-course models of cumulative risk and sensitive periods.Methods: Data from the 26-year prospective study the Northern Swedish Cohort enabled complete case analyses on 940 individuals (451 women and 489 men) participating in questionnaire surveys at ages 16, 21, 30 and 42. Social capital was operationalized at the individual level, comprising items on social participation, social influence and social support. Functional somatic symptoms were a summary measure of self-reported physical symptoms, palpitation and sleeping difficulties occuring during the 12 months prior to the data collection. Linear regression was used as the main statistical method, examining the relationship between functional somatic symptoms at age 42 and social capital across life.Results: Lower levels of social capital accumulated over the life course were associated with higher levels of functional somatic symptoms at age 42, for both women and men. Social capital was, especially among adolescent men, related to functional somatic symptoms at age 42, independently of social capital later in life and baseline material circumstances.Conclusions: The health impact of poor social capital may be due to accumulation across the life course and to adolescence being a particularly sensitive period. It is relevant for preventive work to acknowledge effects of social capital throughout life.
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| 4. |
- Norström, Fredrik, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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How does unemployment affect self-assessed health? : A systematic review focusing on subgroup effects
- 2014
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Ingår i: BMC Public Health. - : BioMed Central. - 1471-2458. ; 14:1
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Almost all studies on the effect on health from unemployment have concluded that unemployment is bad for your health. However, only a few review articles have dealt with this relation in recent years, and none of them have focused on the analysis of subgroups such as age, gender, and marital status. The objective of our article is to review how unemployment relates to self-assessed health with a focus on its effect on subgroups.METHODS: A search was performed in Web of Science to find articles that measured the effect on health from unemployment. The selection of articles was limited to those written in English, consisting of original data, and published in 2003 or later. Our definition of health was restricted to self-assessed health. Mortality- and morbidity-related measurements were therefore not included in our analysis. For the 41 articles included, information about health measurements, employment status definitions, other factors included in the statistical analysis, study design (including study population), and statistical method were collected with the aim of analysing the results on both the population and factor level.RESULTS: Most of the studies in our review showed a negative effect on health from unemployment on a population basis. Results at the factor levels were most common for gender (25 articles), age (11 articles), geographic location (8 articles), and education level (5 articles). The analysis showed that there was a health effect for gender, age, education level, household income, and geographic location. However, this effect differed between studies and no clear pattern on who benefits or suffers more among these groups could be determined. The result instead seemed to depend on the study context. The only clear patterns of association found were for socioeconomic status (manual workers suffer more), reason for unemployment (being unemployed due to health reasons is worse), and social network (a strong network is beneficial).CONCLUSIONS: Unemployment affects groups of individuals differently. We believe that a greater effort should be spent on specific groups of individuals, such as men or women, instead of the population as a whole when analysing the effect of unemployment on health.
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| 5. |
- Theorell, Töres, et al.
(författare)
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Job strain and depressive symptoms in men and women : a prospective study of the working population in Sweden
- 2014
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Ingår i: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. - : BMJ Publishing Group. - 0143-005X .- 1470-2738. ; 68:1, s. 78-82
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Several prospective studies have indicated increased risk of developing depressive symptoms in employees who report psychologically demanding and uncontrollable work (job strain). There are diverging findings regarding gender differences in this relationship. The aim was to analyse whether men and women differ with regard to the prospective relationship between adverse psychosocial work environment and depressive symptoms during a 2-year period.METHOD: The Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health cohort based on representative recruitment of working men and women in Sweden was used. 2731 men and 3446 women had answered questions regarding work environment and mental health in 2008 and 2010. Psychological demands, decision authority, age and income as well as depressive symptoms in 2008 were used as predictors of depressive symptoms in 2010.RESULTS: Women reported less decision authority at work and their demand level developed more unfavourably than did men's-resulting in increased job strain gap between men and women from 2008 to 2010. The relationship between demand and decision authority (and job strain) on one hand and depressive symptoms on the other hand was not statistically different in men and women.CONCLUSIONS: Overall, women reported higher levels of job strain than men. In Sweden, job strain was as strongly related to depressive symptoms among men as among women.
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