title: The attribution of work environment in explaining gender differences in long-term sickness absence: results from the prospective DREAM study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To identify differences in risk of long-term sickness absence between female and male employees in Denmark and to examine to what extent differences could be explained by work environment factors.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cohort of 5026 employees (49.1% women, mean age 40.4years; 50.9% men, mean age 40.2years) was interviewed in 2000 regarding gender, age, family status, socio-economic position and psychosocial and physical work environment factors. The participants were followed for 18months in order to assess their incidence of long-term sickness absence exceeding 8 consecutive weeks.
  
  
  RESULTS
  298 workers (5.9%) received sickness absence compensation for 8weeks or more. Women had an excess risk of 37% compared to men, when adjusting for age, family status and socio-economic position. Physical work environment exposures could not explain this difference, whereas differences in psychosocial work environment exposures explained 32% of the differences in risk of long-term sickness absence between men and women, causing the effect of gender to become statistically insignificant. The combined effect of physical and psychosocial factors was similar, explaining 30% of the gender difference.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Differences in psychosocial work environments in terms of emotional demands, reward at work, management quality and role conflicts, explained roughly 30% of women's excess long-term sickness absence risk. Assuming women and men had identical working conditions would leave the larger part of the gender difference in long-term sickness absence from work unexplained.
authors: Danish Ramazzini Centre, Department of Occupational Medicine, Regional Hospital Herning, Herning 7400, Denmark. meretelabriola@me.com
authors: Merete
authors: M
authors: Labriola
authors: Kari Anne
authors: KA
authors: Holte
authors: Karl Bang
authors: KB
authors: Christensen
authors: Helene
authors: H
authors: Feveile
authors: Kristina
authors: K
authors: Alexanderson
authors: Thomas
authors: T
authors: Lund
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D017678:Sex Distribution; D018582:Sick Leave / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017132:Workplace / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult