Objectives This study aimed to quantify possible associations between exposure to workplace bullying and violence, or threats thereof, and working life expectancy (WLE) among older workers in Sweden.

Methods We conducted a prospective cohort study using data on 12 920 individuals in analyses of workplace bullying and 12 903 individuals in analyses of violence. Participants, aged >50 at baseline, were obtained from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health, using data from 2008 to 2020. We applied continuous-time multistate Markov models to estimate the average number of years that individuals could be expected to work beyond the age of 50, comparing those exposed to workplace bullying or workplace violence/threats of violence to those unexposed.

Results In the unadjusted analysis, exposure to workplace bullying and workplace violence/threats of violence was associated with shorter WLE among older workers [bullying: -0.42 years, 95% confidence interval (CI) -1.23–0.01; violence: -0.42 years, 95% CI -1.06–0.01]. After controlling for sex and occupational level, WLE at age 50 was -0.56 years among those exposed to workplace violence (95% CI -1.02– -0.10) compared with the unexposed. The estimate for workplace bullying was -0.63 years (95% CI -1.39–0.14).

Conclusion Exposure to workplace violence or threats of violence was associated with fewer average expected years in work from age 50. This suggests that prevention of workplace violence could contribute to extended working lives. The association between workplace bullying and WLE was of similar magnitude but not statistically significant.

Longer life expectancy and fertility decline raise several potential challenges for national economies and the security of welfare systems. Raising retirement ages, or ages of eligibility for state pension, is one strategy to offset rising costs. Yet, considerable subgroup variation exists in full retirement timing, particularly by socioeconomic status (SES). While most studies rely on one or two measures of SES to understand these trends, we aim to extend the literature by examining education, occupation, and income in the Swedish context, something not previously studied. Data from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH) from 2008 to 2020 (n = 16,497 people age 50 + and n = 64,917 person-observations) were used to examine how each SES measure impacts working life expectancy (WLE). This is a summary measure capturing the average duration that older workers remain in paid work. WLE was estimated using multistate models that assume a continuous-time first-order Markov process, based on transitions between working, not working, and death among older workers. Models were stratified by sex and cross-classified by each SES measure. Findings show that the SES measure used matters for estimating WLE. Specifically, WLE was 1.5 years longer in the highest compared to the lowest education group; 1 year longer in the highest than lowest occupation group, and 0.5 years longer in the highest than lowest income tertiles.

Objective This study aimed to examine the associations between work-related psychosocial factors and working life expectancy (WLE) across occupational groups among Finnish public sector employees aged ≥50 years.

Methods In this cohort study, 70 662 Finnish public sector employees completed surveys on work-related psychosocial factors in 2000–2002, 2004, 2008, 2011–2012, 2013–2014, and 2015–2016, with each participant responding at least once at age ≥50 years (response rates 66–71%; 80% female). Survey data were linked to pensionable earnings records to verify work participation until 31 December 2018. WLE WLE between ages 50 and 68 was estimated using a multi-state life tables approach. Analyses were conducted among three occupational groups: managers and specialized professionals, non-manual professionals, and service and manual workers.

Results The overall WLE at age 50 was 13.1 years [95% confidence interval (CI) 13.1–13.2]. Work-related psychosocial factors were associated with shorter WLE across all occupational groups, with WLE shortening from the highest to the lowest occupational group. High effort–reward imbalance (ERI) was associated with the shortest WLE, approximately five months shorter than among employees with low ERI. Compared with managers and specialized professionals with low psychosocial risks, high ERI, high job strain, high relational or procedural injustice were each associated with an approximately 1-year shorter WLE among service and manual workers. Occupational group showed a stronger association with WLE than the accumulation of psychosocial risk factors. No sex differences in WLE were observed.

Conclusion These findings suggest that promoting favorable psychosocial working conditions may extend working careers and reduce inequalities in working life participation, particularly among service and manual workers.

Many European countries have increased retirement ages to address the challenge of population ageing. However, job strain which is the combination of high job demands and low job control may be an obstacle to extending the working lives of older workers. Job strain is associated with poor health and early work exit among older workers, but less is known about whether job strain impacts working life expectancy (WLE)—an increasingly employed summary measure capturing the length of working lives. This study aims to fill this gap in the literature. The sample included n = 13 225 individuals aged 50 years or older at baseline providing 53 004 persons-observations from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health in 2008 through 2020. We used continuous time multi-state Markov models to assess the average number of years people may be expected to work beyond age 50 years by job strain, and stratified by sex, occupational class, and level of education. Job strain was associated with a significantly shorter WLE (by about 6 months to a year) among those who experienced job strain compared to those who did not experience job strain. Our findings suggest that job strain may play a role in shortening the working lives of older people. The findings further suggest that if older workers are to remain in the labor market for longer periods, this may require improvements of psychosocial working conditions.

Background Behaviour-related health risk factors are associated with an increased risk of early exit from the working life, but their contribution to working life expectancy (WLE) remains unclear. We investigated the associations of obesity, alcohol intake, smoking and low levels of physical activity with WLE among adults aged 50 years and older.

Methods Individuals working at study baseline with 18 years of follow-up data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) (n = 3233) and the Finnish Public Sector study (FPS) were included (n = 65,255). Obesity, alcohol consumption, smoking and low physical activity were self-reported at study baseline. WLE from age 50 to 70 years was estimated using a multi-state modelling, separately for men and women across occupational position categories (low, intermediate and high), with adjustment for age.

Results Our findings suggest that individuals who were obese, smoked, had low physical activity levels and reported heavy alcohol use (only in FPS) could expect to work fewer years than those who did not have these behaviour-related health risk factors. A higher number of risk factors was associated with shorter WLE across sex and occupational position categories in both studies. The difference in WLEs between those with no behaviour-related health risk factors and those with ≥ 2 risk factors was up to 1.5 years in ELSA and less than 1 year in FPS.

Conclusion Having multiple behaviour-related health risk factors is linked to shorter WLE after age of 50 years, a difference that may have important economic implications in societies with ageing populations.

Background: In the relationship between malaria and meteorological factors, existing studies mainly focus on the interaction between different climatic factors, while interaction within one specific climatic predictor at different lag times has been largely neglected. Objectives: This paper aims to explore the interaction of lagged rainfalls and their impact on malaria incidence. Materials and Methods: Monthly malaria cases and three climatic variables of 4 districts in Meghalaya from 2005 to 2017 were analyzed with the varying coefficient-distributed lag nonlinear model. The correlation patterns of the 2 nd -, 3 rd -, and 4 th -month lags would vary over different rainfall levels at the 1 st -month lag. During the period 2005-2017, a total of 309,133 malaria cases were reported in all the districts under study. Results: The monthly average rainfall ranges from a minimum of 181.79 mm in South Garo to a maximum of 367.87 in Jaintia. Furthermore, South Garo and East Khasi are the hottest and the coolest places under study with 26.96°C and 16.86°C, respectively. Rainfall levels in the 1 st -month lag affect the nonlinear patterns between the incidence of malaria and rainfall at each lag time. The low rainfall level at the 1 st -month lag may promote malaria incidence as rainfall increases. However, for the high rainfall level at the 1 st -month lag, malaria incidence decreases as rainfall increases. Conclusion: The interaction effect between lagged rainfalls on malaria incidence was observed in this study, and highlights its importance for future studies to better understand and predict malaria transmission.

Long-lasting, excessive stress exposure can have serious health consequences and consequently, to identify potentially harmful consequences, it is important to develop self-report measures of long-lasting stress in everyday life. The complexity of long-lasting excessive stress also raises questions about the efficacy of widely used single-item measures to capture such harmful stress. This study examines the psychometric quality and validity of a brief eight-item scale, measuring long-lasting stress symptoms. Using data from a nationally representative sample, comprising 15,046 working individuals from the 2014 Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH), the findings suggest retaining six of the original eight items, loading on two latent factors: ‘long-lasting perceived stress’ and ‘long-lasting emotional stress’. The high correlation between the two factors suggests the potential for a unified measure to address specific research objectives. The subscales demonstrate concurrent validity with well-established stress-related measures. A single-item measure of perceived stress (‘I have days when I feel stressed all the time’) also correlated with the stress-related measures, although the correlation coefficients were slightly weaker.

Background

Existing studies have used ADL and IADL separately as measures of dependency. However, dependency is a heterogeneous and complex issue, and the dependency of each older adult is a synergistic combination of several functional activities. In this study, we assess the pattern of multidimensional dependency of older adults based on ADL, IADL, visual impairment, difficulty in climbing a flight of stairs, pushing or pulling objects, depressive symptoms, cognitive impairment, marital status, and economic distress. It is important to classify the dependency status of older adults because this will be key to evaluating the needs for care, and plan services that effectively cater for the needs of the older adults. The classification into different latent classes means that older adults within each class have the same needs of dependency but different needs between the latent classes. Our objective is to identify patterns of multidimensional dependency in older adults.

Methods

Data from the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI) Wave-1, was used, the analytical sample consisted of 32,827 individuals of age 45 years and above. LCA was used to identify the multidimensional dependency class. LCA was conducted in R statistical package, using the poLCA package. The optimal number of classes was selected based on the comparison of model fit statistics. Independent variables were incorporated to explore the association between these variables and the latent class.

Results

Based on nine indicator variables, three latent classes were identified: Active Older adults, Moderately independent and Psychological and physically impaired. The Active older adults profile is comprised of older adults who have a very low probability of needing help for any ADL, IADL and other activities. The Moderately independent class were characterized as those older adults who were visually impaired but less likely to need help for IADL activities. The Psychological and physically impaired, the smallest of all classes, comprised of older adults with poor dependency status.

Conclusions

In this study, we found that the dependency status of older adults which is based on several domains of functional activity has been classified into three distinct classes. These three classes have distinct physical, psychological, economic, and socio-demographic characteristics in terms of activities in which help is required.

Increases in retirement ages make it particularly pressing to better understand how long people will work. Working life expectancy (WLE) is a useful measure for this and the current paper assesses the tools, that is, software packages, available to assess it. We do this using data from the English Longitudinal Survey on Ageing (ELSA, 2003-2018) and multistate models to estimate WLE stratified by sex and socioeconomic status. Men's versus women's WLEs were slightly higher at all ages. Estimates were similar in ELECT and SPACE by both sex and socioeconomic status. WLEs were comparatively higher from IMaCh, ranging from approximately 0.28 to 1.49 years. Life expectancy estimates from IMaCh were also higher compared to SPACE and ELECT. Using multistate models to estimate WLE provides a useful indication of the actual expected length of working life. More research is needed to better understand why estimates from IMaCh differed from ELECT and SPACE.

Background

Multiple factors are associated with the risk of diabetes and hypertension. In India, they vary widely even from one district to another. Therefore, strategies for controlling diabetes and hypertension should appropriately address local risk factors and take into account the specific causes of the prevalence of diabetes and hypertension at sub-population levels and in specific settings. This paper examines the demographic and socioeconomic risk factors as well as the spatial disparity of diabetes and hypertension among adults aged 15–49 years in Northeast India.

Methods

The study used data from the Indian Demographic Health Survey, which was conducted across the country between 2015 and 2016. All men and women between the ages of 15 and 49 years were tested for diabetes and hypertension as part of the survey. A Bayesian geo-additive model was used to determine the risk factors of diabetes and hypertension.

Results

The prevalence rates of diabetes and hypertension in Northeast India were, respectively, 6.38% and 16.21%. The prevalence was higher among males, urban residents, and those who were widowed/divorced/separated. The functional relationship between household wealth index and diabetes and hypertension was found to be an inverted U-shape. As the household wealth status increased, its effect on diabetes also increased. However, interestingly, the inverse was observed in the case of hypertension, that is, as the household wealth status increased, its effect on hypertension decreased. The unstructured spatial variation in diabetes was mainly due to the unobserved risk factors present within a district that were not related to the nearby districts, while for hypertension, the structured spatial variation was due to the unobserved factors that were related to the nearby districts.

Conclusion

Diabetes and hypertension control measures should consider both local and non-local factors that contribute to the spatial heterogeneity. More importance should be given to efforts aimed at evaluating district-specific factors in the prevalence of diabetes within a region.