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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
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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 

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