IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v67y2008i11p1870-1881.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The contribution of occupational factors to social inequalities in health: Findings from the national French SUMER survey

Author

Listed:
  • Niedhammer, Isabelle
  • Chastang, Jean-François
  • David, Simone
  • Kelleher, Cecily

Abstract

Social inequalities in health have long been demonstrated, but the understanding of these inequalities remains unclear. Work and its related occupational factors may contribute to these inequalities. The objective of this study was to study the contribution of work factors using an integrated approach (including all types of exposures) to social inequalities in three health outcomes: poor self-reported health, long sickness absence, and work injury. Respondents were 14[punctuation space]241 men and 10[punctuation space]245 women drawn from a survey of the national French working population (response rate: 96.5%). Work factors included job characteristics, and occupational exposures of the physical, ergonomic, biological, chemical, and psychosocial work environment. All work factors were measured through expert evaluation by occupational physicians, except psychosocial work factors, which were self-reported. Strong social gradients were found for all work factors, except for psychological demands, workplace bullying, and aggression from the public. Marked social gradients were also observed for the health outcomes studied, blue collar workers being more likely to report poor self-reported health, long sickness absence, and work injury. The social differences in health were reduced strongly after adjustment for work factors (psychological demands excluded) by 24-58% according to sex and health outcomes. The strongest impacts were found for decision latitude, ergonomic, physical, and chemical exposures, as well as for work schedules. A detailed analysis allowed us to identify more precisely the contributing occupational factors. It suggests that concerted prevention of occupational risk factors would be useful not only to improve health at work, but also to reduce social inequalities in health.

Suggested Citation

  • Niedhammer, Isabelle & Chastang, Jean-François & David, Simone & Kelleher, Cecily, 2008. "The contribution of occupational factors to social inequalities in health: Findings from the national French SUMER survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(11), pages 1870-1881, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:67:y:2008:i:11:p:1870-1881
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(08)00449-8
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Borg, Vilhelm & Kristensen, Tage S., 2000. "Social class and self-rated health: can the gradient be explained by differences in life style or work environment?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(7), pages 1019-1030, October.
    2. Sekine, Michikazu & Chandola, Tarani & Martikainen, Pekka & Marmot, Michael & Kagamimori, Sadanobu, 2006. "Socioeconomic inequalities in physical and mental functioning of Japanese civil servants: Explanations from work and family characteristics," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 430-445, July.
    3. Borrell, Carme & Muntaner, Carles & Benach, Joan & Artazcoz, Lucía, 2004. "Social class and self-reported health status among men and women: what is the role of work organisation, household material standards and household labour?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(10), pages 1869-1887, May.
    4. Hemström, Örjan, 2005. "Health inequalities by wage income in Sweden: The role of work environment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 637-647, August.
    5. Monden, Christiaan W.S., 2005. "Current and lifetime exposure to working conditions. Do they explain educational differences in subjective health?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(11), pages 2465-2476, June.
    6. Fuhrer, R. & Shipley, M.J. & Chastang, J.F. & Schmaus, A. & Niedhammer, I. & Stansfeld, S.A. & Goldberg, M. & Marmot, M.G., 2002. "Socioeconomic position, health, and possible explanations: A tale of two cohorts," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 92(8), pages 1290-1294.
    7. Huisman, Martijn & Van Lenthe, Frank & Avendano, Mauricio & Mackenbach, Johan, 2008. "The contribution of job characteristics to socioeconomic inequalities in incidence of myocardial infarction," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(11), pages 2240-2252, June.
    8. Warren, John Robert & Hoonakker, Peter & Carayon, Pascale & Brand, Jennie, 2004. "Job characteristics as mediators in SES-health relationships," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 59(7), pages 1367-1378, October.
    9. Theorell, T. & Tsutsumi, A. & Hallquist, J. & Reuterwall, C. & Hogstedt, C. & Fredlund, P. & Emlund, N. & Johnson, J.V., 1998. "Decision latitude, job strain, and myocardial infarction: A study of working men in Stockholm," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 88(3), pages 382-388.
    10. Melchior, M. & Krieger, N. & Kawachi, I. & Berkman, L.F. & Niedhammer, I. & Goldberg, M., 2005. "Work factors and occupational class disparities in sickness absence: Findings from the GAZEL cohort study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 95(7), pages 1206-1212.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meyer, S.C. & Künn-Nelen, A.C., 2014. "Do occupational demands explain the educational gradient in health?," Research Memorandum 016, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    2. Hämmig, Oliver & Gutzwiller, Felix & Kawachi, Ichiro, 2014. "The contribution of lifestyle and work factors to social inequalities in self-rated health among the employed population in Switzerland," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 74-84.
    3. Suzan J W Robroek & Anne Rongen & Coos H Arts & Ferdy W H Otten & Alex Burdorf & Merel Schuring, 2015. "Educational Inequalities in Exit from Paid Employment among Dutch Workers: The Influence of Health, Lifestyle and Work," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(8), pages 1-12, August.
    4. Sascha de Breij & Martijn Huisman & Dorly J H Deeg, 2020. "Work characteristics and health in older workers: Educational inequalities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-11, October.
    5. Jobst Augustin & Valerie Andrees & David Walsh & Ralf Reintjes & Daniela Koller, 2023. "Spatial Aspects of Health—Developing a Conceptual Framework," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-15, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Huisman, Martijn & Van Lenthe, Frank & Avendano, Mauricio & Mackenbach, Johan, 2008. "The contribution of job characteristics to socioeconomic inequalities in incidence of myocardial infarction," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(11), pages 2240-2252, June.
    2. Meyer, Sophie-Charlotte & Künn-Nelen, Annemarie, 2014. "Do Occupational Demands Explain the Educational Gradient in Health?," IZA Discussion Papers 8011, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Qiu, Hanyao & Bures, Regina & Shehan, Constance L., 2012. "The inconsistent mediating effects of psychosocial work characteristics on the education–health relationship," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(8), pages 1539-1546.
    4. Hämmig, Oliver & Gutzwiller, Felix & Kawachi, Ichiro, 2014. "The contribution of lifestyle and work factors to social inequalities in self-rated health among the employed population in Switzerland," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 74-84.
    5. Solé, Meritxell & Diaz-Serrano, Luis & Rodríguez, Marisol, 2013. "Disparities in work, risk and health between immigrants and native-born Spaniards," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 179-187.
    6. Muntaner, Carles & Borrell, Carme & Vanroelen, Christophe & Chung, Haejoo & Benach, Joan & Kim, Il Ho & Ng, Edwin, 2010. "Employment relations, social class and health: A review and analysis of conceptual and measurement alternatives," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(12), pages 2130-2140, December.
    7. Kristensen, Petter & Bjerkedal, Tor & Irgens, Lorentz M., 2007. "Early life determinants of musculoskeletal sickness absence in a cohort of Norwegians born in 1967-1976," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 646-655, February.
    8. Cédric Afsa & Pauline Givord, 2009. "Le rôle des conditions de travail dans les absences pour maladie : le cas des horaires irréguliers," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 187(1), pages 83-103.
    9. Carolina Navarro & Luis Ayala & José Labeaga, 2010. "Housing deprivation and health status: evidence from Spain," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 555-582, June.
    10. Ragna Stalsberg & Arve Vorland Pedersen, 2018. "Are Differences in Physical Activity across Socioeconomic Groups Associated with Choice of Physical Activity Variables to Report?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-23, May.
    11. Chen, Yuanyuan & Wang, Haining & Cheng, Zhiming & Smyth, Russell, 2023. "Education and Migrant Health in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    12. Elena Cottini & Claudio Lucifora, 2013. "GINI DP 86: Inequalities at work Job quality, Health and Low pay in European Workplaces," GINI Discussion Papers 86, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    13. Lallukka, Tea & Lahelma, Eero & Rahkonen, Ossi & Roos, Eva & Laaksonen, Elina & Martikainen, Pekka & Head, Jenny & Brunner, Eric & Mosdol, Annhild & Marmot, Michael & Sekine, Michikazu & Nasermoaddeli, 2008. "Associations of job strain and working overtime with adverse health behaviors and obesity: Evidence from the Whitehall II Study, Helsinki Health Study, and the Japanese Civil Servants Study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1681-1698, April.
    14. Jerneja Farkas & Majda Pahor & Lijana Zaletel-Kragelj, 2011. "Self-rated health in different social classes of Slovenian adult population: nationwide cross-sectional study," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 56(1), pages 45-54, February.
    15. Adler, Nancy & Singh-Manoux, Archana & Schwartz, Joseph & Stewart, Judith & Matthews, Karen & Marmot, Michael G., 2008. "Social status and health: A comparison of British civil servants in Whitehall-II with European- and African-Americans in CARDIA," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(5), pages 1034-1045, March.
    16. Florian Heiss & Axel Börsch-Supan & Michael Hurd & David A. Wise, 2009. "Pathways to Disability: Predicting Health Trajectories," NBER Chapters, in: Health at Older Ages: The Causes and Consequences of Declining Disability among the Elderly, pages 105-150, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Belloni, Michele & Carrino, Ludovico & Meschi, Elena, 2022. "The impact of working conditions on mental health: Novel evidence from the UK," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    18. Arber, Sara & Bote, Marcos & Meadows, Robert, 2009. "Gender and socio-economic patterning of self-reported sleep problems in Britain," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 281-289, January.
    19. Jongha Jeon & Wanhyung Lee & Won-Jun Choi & Seunghon Ham & Seong-Kyu Kang, 2020. "Association between Working Hours and Self-Rated Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-11, April.
    20. Sergio Martín-Prieto & Cristina Alvarez-Peregrina & Israel Thuissard-Vassallo & Carlos Catalina-Romero & Eva Calvo-Bonacho & César Villa-Collar & Miguel Ángel Sánchez-Tena, 2021. "Description of Main Predictors for Taking Sick Leave Associated with Work-Related Eye Injuries in Spain," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(10), pages 1-10, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:67:y:2008:i:11:p:1870-1881. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.