Documents degree of disability 22 results

"This study identified occupations with a marked impact on sick leaves due to respiratory disease.Respiratory disease accounted for 4.4% of the total number of sick leaves. The incidence of long-term ({>=90 days) sick leaves due to respiratory disease was 3 times higher in occupations with a high incidence than in those with a low incidence. There was a high correlation (r=0.80) between the incidence of long-term sick leave due to respiratory disease and sick leave due to all other conditions; this finding suggests that market and selection factors may play an important role in determining the overall risk for sick leave in various occupations. The proportion of sick leaves due to long-term respiratory disease out of all long-term disease was compared between occupations. Agricultural workers had a 46% higher proportion of long-term respiratory disease than metal workers. Industrial workers, food industry workers, and painters were also occupations with an increased risk. These findings could not be explained by differences in age or smoking habits.Major differences were found among manual and service occupations regarding long-term sick leave due to respiratory disease. Several occupations, in which exposure to respiratory sensitizers and irritants are known to occur, were among those in which workers had an increased risk for long-term respiratory disease. ..."

"In many developed countries, policies are enacted to increase labor force participation among older workers and to extend the age of statutory retirement in response to the ageing of society. Within Europe, the employment rate among 55–65-year olds has increased in the past decade, but there are large differences among countries, for example, reported participation among men varies from 41% in France to 73% in Sweden (1). Hence, in most countries, it will already be a large societal challenge to support workers to maintain their ability to work until the age of 65. The increase in the statutory retirement age to 67 years and beyond will require additional societal efforts to ensure that older workers can continue to contribute to a productive workforce. ..."

"Pressure is mounting for clinicians to rely solely on “objective” measures when evaluating workers with possible work-related disease. These measures are intended to largely supplant the worker's history as sources of information regarding diagnosis, work relatedness, and extent of disability. While seeming to promote more accurate and neutral evaluation methods, the underlying agenda is to reduce business costs by denying work-related illness and disability. Promoting the view of occupational health as the province of technical experts, the campaign for the “objective” finding silences workers as unqualified to comment. The methods proposed to enhance objectivity also suffer from significant specific shortcomings. To resist efforts to fetishize the objective finding, clinicians need to recognize the subjective elements of objective methods as well as the objective value of subjective data. This requires recognition of the central role of workers and histories in the clinical evaluation process ..."

"The research characterized workers having suffered an occupational injury. These workers constitute the target population of a governmental policy designed to favour early return to work. The characteristics of workers, characteristics of injuries and structural characteristics of companies in cases in which return to work measures were present were compared with these same characteristics in cases in which such measures were absent. The presence or absence of return to work measures was a defining characteristic of the seven classes identified by multivariate analysis. The composition of these classes reflects the complex interaction between return to work measures on the one hand and the socio-demographic characteristics of workers, characteristics of injuries, and structural characteristics of companies on the other. "

"This study examines the sense of self of women with physical disabilities in terms of self-esteem, self-cognition (perceptions of how others see them), and social isolation. It was hypothesized that these variables mediate the relation of precursor variables (age, education, severity of disability, and childhood experiences, including overprotection, familial affection, and school environment) and outcomes (intimacy, employment, and health promoting behaviors). Data were gathered from a sample of 881 community-dwelling women in the USA, 475 with a variety of mild to severe physical disabilities, and 406 without disabilities. Correlation analyses indicated that the women with disabilities had significantly lower self-cognition and self-esteem, and greater social isolation than the women without disabilities, as well as significantly less education, more overprotection during childhood, poorer quality of intimate relationships, and lower rates of salaried employment. Path analysis indicated that each of the sense of self mediators was significantly related to the outcome of intimacy, that both social isolation and self-esteem were significantly related to health promoting behaviors, and that only self-esteem was significantly related to employment. Respondents who were older, less disabled, less educated, less over-protected, and had more affection shown in the home tended to feel that others saw them more positively. Women with positive school environments, less over-protection, and more affection in the home experienced less social isolation; age, education, and disability severity were not significantly related to social isolation. Older respondents with less disability, a more positive school environment, less over-protection, and more affection in the home tended to have greater self-esteem; education was not significantly related to self-esteem. Older respondents tended to report less intimacy. Younger, more educated, and less disabled respondents were significantly more likely to be employed. More highly educated respondents reported engaging in more health promoting behaviors."