IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0088306.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Visual Difficulty and Employment Status in the World

Author

Listed:
  • Hanen Harrabi
  • Marie-Josee Aubin
  • Maria Victoria Zunzunegui
  • Slim Haddad
  • Ellen E Freeman

Abstract

Purpose: Using a world-wide, population-based dataset, we sought to examine the relationship between visual difficulty and employment status. Methods: The World Health Survey was conducted in 70 countries throughout the world in 2003 using a random, multi-stage, stratified, cluster sampling design. Far vision was assessed by asking about the level of difficulty in seeing and recognizing a person you know across the road (i.e. from a distance of about 20 meters). Responses included none, mild, moderate, severe, or extreme/unable. Participants were asked about their current job, and if they were not working, the reason why (unable to find job, ill health, homemaker, studies, unpaid work, other). The occupation in the last 12 months was obtained. Multinomial regression was used accounting for the complex survey design. Results: Of those who wanted to work, 79% of those with severe visual difficulty and 64% of those with extreme visual difficulty were actually working. People who had moderate, severe, or extreme visual difficulty had a higher odds of not working due to an inability to find a job and of not working due to ill health after adjusting for demographic and health factors (P

Suggested Citation

  • Hanen Harrabi & Marie-Josee Aubin & Maria Victoria Zunzunegui & Slim Haddad & Ellen E Freeman, 2014. "Visual Difficulty and Employment Status in the World," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(2), pages 1-6, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0088306
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0088306
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0088306
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0088306&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0088306?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ellen E Freeman & Marie-Hélène Roy-Gagnon & Elodie Samson & Slim Haddad & Marie-Josée Aubin & Claudia Vela & Maria Victoria Zunzunegui, 2013. "The Global Burden of Visual Difficulty in Low, Middle, and High Income Countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(5), pages 1-8, May.
    2. Cruickshanks, K.J. & Klein, B.E.K. & Klein, R., 1992. "Ultraviolet light exposure and lens opacities: The Beaver Dam Eye Study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 82(12), pages 1658-1662.
    3. Roelfs, David J. & Shor, Eran & Davidson, Karina W. & Schwartz, Joseph E., 2011. "Losing life and livelihood: A systematic review and meta-analysis of unemployment and all-cause mortality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(6), pages 840-854, March.
    4. Garcy, Anthony M. & Vågerö, Denny, 2012. "The length of unemployment predicts mortality, differently in men and women, and by cause of death: A six year mortality follow-up of the Swedish 1992–1996 recession," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(12), pages 1911-1920.
    5. Ryskulova, A. & Turczyn, K. & Makuc, D.M. & Cotch, M.F. & Klein, R.J. & Janiszewski, R., 2008. "Self-reported age-related eye diseases and visual impairment in the United States: Results of the 2002 National Health Interview Survey," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(3), pages 454-461.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Allison Milner & Andrew Page & Anthony D LaMontagne, 2013. "Long-Term Unemployment and Suicide: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(1), pages 1-6, January.
    2. Lawrence Pellegrini & Rosa Rodriguez-Monguio & Jing Qian, 2014. "The US healthcare workforce and the labor market effect on healthcare spending and health outcomes," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 127-141, June.
    3. Shahidi, Faraz Vahid & Muntaner, Carles & Shankardass, Ketan & Quiñonez, Carlos & Siddiqi, Arjumand, 2019. "The effect of unemployment benefits on health: A propensity score analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 226(C), pages 198-206.
    4. Isabel Aguilar-Palacio & Patricia Carrera-Lasfuentes & M. Rabanaque, 2015. "Youth unemployment and economic recession in Spain: influence on health and lifestyles in young people (16–24 years old)," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 60(4), pages 427-435, May.
    5. Jacques Wels, & Booth, Charlotte & Wielgoszewska, Bożena & Green, Michael J. & Di Gessa, Giorgio & Huggins, Charlotte F. & Griffith, Gareth J. & Kwong, Alex S.F. & Bowyer, Ruth C.E. & Maddock, Jane & , 2022. "Mental and social wellbeing and the UK coronavirus job retention scheme: Evidence from nine longitudinal studies," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 308(C).
    6. Everding, Jakob & Marcus, Jan, 2020. "The effect of unemployment on the smoking behavior of couples," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 29(2), pages 154-170.
    7. Abdou, Rawayda & Cassells, Damien & Berrill, Jenny & Hanly, Jim, 2020. "An empirical investigation of the relationship between business performance and suicide in the US," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    8. O’Leary, Nigel & Li, Ian W. & Gupta, Prashant & Blackaby, David, 2020. "Wellbeing trajectories around life events in Australia," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 499-509.
    9. Bonamore, Giorgio & Carmignani, Fabrizio & Colombo, Emilio, 2015. "Addressing the unemployment–mortality conundrum: Non-linearity is the answer," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 67-72.
    10. Antonio Taboada-Vazquez & Ruben Gonzalez-Rodriguez & Manuel Gandoy-Crego & Miguel Clemente, 2021. "Psychological Profile and Consumption of Healthcare Resources in Actively Employed People, Pre-Retirees, and Retirees," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-11, April.
    11. Beste, Jonas & Bethmann, Arne & Gundert, Stefanie, 2014. "Sozialstruktur und Lebensumstände: Materielle und soziale Lage der ALG-II-Empfänger (Material and social well-being of Unemployment Benefit II recipients)," IAB-Kurzbericht 201424, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    12. Sanchez Rico, Marina & Plessz, Marie & Airagnes, Guillaume & Wiernik, Emmanuel & Hoertel, Nicolas & Goldberg, Marcel & Zins, Marie & Meneton, Pierre, 2024. "Lifetime exposure to unemployment and prior working conditions are associated with retiree's health: A retrospective study in a large population-based French cohort," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 341(C).
    13. Shor, Eran & Roelfs, David J., 2015. "Social contact frequency and all-cause mortality: A meta-analysis and meta-regression," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 76-86.
    14. Brendon Stubbs & Kamran Siddiqi & Helen Elsey & Najma Siddiqi & Ruimin Ma & Eugenia Romano & Sameen Siddiqi & Ai Koyanagi, 2021. "Tuberculosis and Non-Communicable Disease Multimorbidity: An Analysis of the World Health Survey in 48 Low- and Middle-Income Countries," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-15, March.
    15. Mine Kühn & Christian Dudel & Tobias C. Vogt & Anna Oksuzyan, 2017. "Trends in gender differences in health and mortality at working ages among West and East Germans," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2017-009, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    16. Frank, John & Bromley, Catherine & Doi, Larry & Estrade, Michelle & Jepson, Ruth & McAteer, John & Robertson, Tony & Treanor, Morag & Williams, Andrew, 2015. "Seven key investments for health equity across the lifecourse: Scotland versus the rest of the UK," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 136-146.
    17. Mireia Felez-Nobrega & Ai Koyanagi, 2023. "Health status and quality of life in comorbid physical multimorbidity and depression among adults aged ⩾50 years from low- and middle-income countries," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 69(5), pages 1250-1259, August.
    18. Olga Grigoriev & Gabriele Doblhammer, 2022. "Does the Mortality of Individuals with Severe Disabilities Contribute to the Persistent East–West Mortality Gap Among German Men?," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 38(2), pages 247-271, May.
    19. Barlow, Pepita & Reeves, Aaron & McKee, Martin & Stuckler, David, 2019. "Employment relations and dismissal regulations: does employment legislation protect the health of workers?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100359, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Reeves, Aaron & Karanikolos, Marina & Mackenbach, Johan & McKee, Martin & Stuckler, David, 2014. "Do employment protection policies reduce the relative disadvantage in the labour market experienced by unhealthy people? A natural experiment created by the Great Recession in Europe," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 98-108.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:plo:pone00:0088306. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.