Health Assets Project 2008

The Health Assets Project is being carried out by the GendiQ research group at the Unit of Social Medicine. The project examines the individual, organisational and societal factors affecting the return to work of people on sick leave, and what factors contribute to people not becoming sick-listed at all. The Health Assets Project is a longitudinal cohort study, with initially two data collection periods. The first was conducted in the spring of 2008 and the second was due in the autumn of 2009. The data was collected through mailed questionnaires and registry data. In the spring of 2008, a survey was mailed out to a sample drawn from the registers held by SCB and Social Insurance, comprising both sick and healthy people registered in the county.  The study population is based on three cohorts; the general population cohort, the sick-listed employer-reported cohort and the sick-listed self-reported cohort. In the first data collection in the spring of 2008, a total of 7 835 people participated, of which the population cohort comprised 4 027 people, the employer-reported cohort 3310 and the self-reported cohort 498. The proportion of women was higher then the men in all three cohorts, 55 % in the population cohort, 66 % in the employer-reported cohort and 65 % in the self-reported cohort.

Purpose:

The specific aims of the project are: 1) To examine the differences in self-reported health between a general population and incident sick-leave cohorts. 2) To examine the work-related factors that promote people returning to work after having been sick-listed. 3)To examine the living conditions, i.e. individual-related and psychosocial factors, that promote people returning to work after having been sick-listed. 4) To examine the factors that during the rehabilitation function as resources or barriers in the process from sick-leave to returning to work.

Dataset includes the 7835 individuals responding to the first questionnaire, in 2008.