Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T06:44:22.927Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hospital Admissions Before and After Shipyard Closure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Mel Bartley  and
Leonard Fagin
Mel Bartley
Affiliation:
Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London, 41 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AZ
Leonard Fagin
Affiliation:
Claybury Hospital, Woodford Bridge, Essex IG8 8BY
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

“To determine the effect of job loss on health an investigation was made of admissions to hospitals in 887 men five years before and three years after the closure of a Danish shipyard. The control group comprised 441 men from another shipyard. The information on hospital admissions was obtained from the Danish national register of patients. The relative risk of admission in the control group dropped significantly in terms of the number of men admitted from the study group from 1.29 four to five years before closure to 0.74 in the three years after closure. This was especially true of admissions due to accidents (1.33 to 0.46) and diseases of the digestive system (4.53 to 1.03). For diseases of the circulatory system, particularly cardiovascular diseases, the relative risk increased from 0.8 to 1.60, and from 1.0 to 2.6 respectively.

These changes in risk of illness after redundancy are probably a consequence of a change from the effects of a high risk work environment to the effects of psychosocial stresses such as job insecurity and unemployment.”

Type
The Current Literature
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 156 , Issue 3 , March 1990 , pp. 421 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1990 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bartley, M. (1988) Unemployment and health: selection or causation? Sociology of Health and Illness, 10, 41–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beale, N. R. & Nethercott, S. (1985) Job loss and family morbidity. A factory closure study in general practice. Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 35, 510–514.Google Scholar
Beale, N. R. & Nethercott, S. (1988) The nature of unemployment morbidity. 2. Description. Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 38, 200–202.Google Scholar
Brenner, M. H. (1979) Unemployment, economic growth and mortality. Lancet, i, 672.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cobb, S. & Kasl, S. V. (1977) Termination: The Consequences of Job Loss. Cincinnati: United States Department of Health Education and Welfare/National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Publication No. 77-224.Google Scholar
Cook, D. G., Cummins, R. O., Bartley, M. J., et al (1982) Health of unemployed middle aged men in Great Britain. Lancet, i, 1290–1294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fagin, L. (1983) Physical and psychological aspects of unemployment. Update, 1353–1360.Google Scholar
Iversen, L. & Klausen, H. (1981) The Closing Down of Nordhavn Shipyard 1976: The Consequences for the Workers in Relation to Employment, Economy and Health. Copenhagen: Institute for Social Medicine, University of Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Iversen, L., Sabroe, S. & Damsgaard, M. T. (1989) Hospital admission before and after shipyard closure. British Medical Journal, 299, 1073–1076.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kasl, S. V., Gore, S. & Cobb, S. (1975) The experience of losing a job. Reported changes in health, symptoms and illness behaviour. Psychosomatic Medicine, 37, 106–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kasl, S. V. & Cobb, S. (1980) The experience of losing a job: some effects on cardiovascular functioning. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 34, 88–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobsen, K. (1972) Dismissal and morbidity. Ugeskrift for Laeger, 134, 352–354.Google ScholarPubMed
Moser, K. A., Fox, A. J. & Jones, D. R. (1984) Unemployment and mortality in the OPCS longitudinal study. Lancet, ii, 1324–1328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moser, K. A., Goldblatt, P. O., Fox, A. J., et al (1987) Unemployment and mortality: comparison of the 1971 and 1981 longitudinal study census samples. British Medical Journal, i, 86–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moylan, S., Millar, J. & Davies, R. (1984) For Richer For Poorer: DHSS Cohort Study of Unemployed Men. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Stern, J. (1979) Who bears the burden of unemployment? In Slow Growth in Britain (ed. Beckerman, W.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.