Introduction: The most recent economic recession left many people outside the labour market world-wide, causing widespread poverty and social exclusion. Gävleborg County in East Central Sweden experienced massive layoffs caused by closure of various industries. Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate differences in health-care use according to employment status at the pick of the recent economic recession. Methods: The study used data from a cross-sectional survey “Health in Equal Terms” carried out in Gävleborg County in 2010. The sample included 4245 persons aged 16-65 years. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were used to assess differences in health-care seeking behaviour by employment status. Results: Employment status was statistically significantly associated with health-care use in Gävleborg County. In the bivariate analysis people who were not employed had odds ratio of 1.62 (CI 1.18-1.72) for health care use as compared to their employed counterparts. Controlling for other variables in Model II to IV removed the statistical significance and reduced the odds to 0.44(CI 0.20-1.00). Conclusions: This study found that at the pick of the most recent economic recession, people who were out of work used more often health services as compared with their employed counterparts. The observed differences in health-care use were explained by demographic, socio-economic and health-related variables. Further studies are needed to analyze trends of healthcare utilization according to employment nationally, particularly at the county level.
Published in | Science Journal of Public Health (Volume 2, Issue 6) |
DOI | 10.11648/j.sjph.20140206.28 |
Page(s) | 610-616 |
Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2014. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Health-Care Use, Employment Status, Economic Recession
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APA Style
Gloria Macassa, Anne-Sofie Hiswåls, Nader Ahmadi, Johana Alfredsson, Joaquim Soares, et al. (2014). Employment Status and Health Care Utilization in a Context of Economic Recession: Results of a Population Based Survey in East Central Sweden. Science Journal of Public Health, 2(6), 610-616. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sjph.20140206.28
ACS Style
Gloria Macassa; Anne-Sofie Hiswåls; Nader Ahmadi; Johana Alfredsson; Joaquim Soares, et al. Employment Status and Health Care Utilization in a Context of Economic Recession: Results of a Population Based Survey in East Central Sweden. Sci. J. Public Health 2014, 2(6), 610-616. doi: 10.11648/j.sjph.20140206.28
AMA Style
Gloria Macassa, Anne-Sofie Hiswåls, Nader Ahmadi, Johana Alfredsson, Joaquim Soares, et al. Employment Status and Health Care Utilization in a Context of Economic Recession: Results of a Population Based Survey in East Central Sweden. Sci J Public Health. 2014;2(6):610-616. doi: 10.11648/j.sjph.20140206.28
@article{10.11648/j.sjph.20140206.28, author = {Gloria Macassa and Anne-Sofie Hiswåls and Nader Ahmadi and Johana Alfredsson and Joaquim Soares and Mindaugas Stankunas}, title = {Employment Status and Health Care Utilization in a Context of Economic Recession: Results of a Population Based Survey in East Central Sweden}, journal = {Science Journal of Public Health}, volume = {2}, number = {6}, pages = {610-616}, doi = {10.11648/j.sjph.20140206.28}, url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sjph.20140206.28}, eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.sjph.20140206.28}, abstract = {Introduction: The most recent economic recession left many people outside the labour market world-wide, causing widespread poverty and social exclusion. Gävleborg County in East Central Sweden experienced massive layoffs caused by closure of various industries. Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate differences in health-care use according to employment status at the pick of the recent economic recession. Methods: The study used data from a cross-sectional survey “Health in Equal Terms” carried out in Gävleborg County in 2010. The sample included 4245 persons aged 16-65 years. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were used to assess differences in health-care seeking behaviour by employment status. Results: Employment status was statistically significantly associated with health-care use in Gävleborg County. In the bivariate analysis people who were not employed had odds ratio of 1.62 (CI 1.18-1.72) for health care use as compared to their employed counterparts. Controlling for other variables in Model II to IV removed the statistical significance and reduced the odds to 0.44(CI 0.20-1.00). Conclusions: This study found that at the pick of the most recent economic recession, people who were out of work used more often health services as compared with their employed counterparts. The observed differences in health-care use were explained by demographic, socio-economic and health-related variables. Further studies are needed to analyze trends of healthcare utilization according to employment nationally, particularly at the county level.}, year = {2014} }
TY - JOUR T1 - Employment Status and Health Care Utilization in a Context of Economic Recession: Results of a Population Based Survey in East Central Sweden AU - Gloria Macassa AU - Anne-Sofie Hiswåls AU - Nader Ahmadi AU - Johana Alfredsson AU - Joaquim Soares AU - Mindaugas Stankunas Y1 - 2014/11/24 PY - 2014 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sjph.20140206.28 DO - 10.11648/j.sjph.20140206.28 T2 - Science Journal of Public Health JF - Science Journal of Public Health JO - Science Journal of Public Health SP - 610 EP - 616 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2328-7950 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sjph.20140206.28 AB - Introduction: The most recent economic recession left many people outside the labour market world-wide, causing widespread poverty and social exclusion. Gävleborg County in East Central Sweden experienced massive layoffs caused by closure of various industries. Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate differences in health-care use according to employment status at the pick of the recent economic recession. Methods: The study used data from a cross-sectional survey “Health in Equal Terms” carried out in Gävleborg County in 2010. The sample included 4245 persons aged 16-65 years. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were used to assess differences in health-care seeking behaviour by employment status. Results: Employment status was statistically significantly associated with health-care use in Gävleborg County. In the bivariate analysis people who were not employed had odds ratio of 1.62 (CI 1.18-1.72) for health care use as compared to their employed counterparts. Controlling for other variables in Model II to IV removed the statistical significance and reduced the odds to 0.44(CI 0.20-1.00). Conclusions: This study found that at the pick of the most recent economic recession, people who were out of work used more often health services as compared with their employed counterparts. The observed differences in health-care use were explained by demographic, socio-economic and health-related variables. Further studies are needed to analyze trends of healthcare utilization according to employment nationally, particularly at the county level. VL - 2 IS - 6 ER -