- Title
- Socioeconomic status and self-reported health among middle-aged Japanese men: results from a nationwide longitudinal study
- Creator
- Wada, Koji; Higuchi, Yoshiyuki; Smith, Derek R.
- Relation
- BMJ Open Vol. 5, Issue 6
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008178
- Publisher
- BMJ Open
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2015
- Description
- Objective: To examine potential associations between socioeconomic factors and self-rated health among a national sample of Japanese men aged 50–59 years between 2005 and 2010, including the 2008 global financial crisis. Design Prospective cohort study: Setting Randomly selected 2515 census areas from a total of 1.8 million census areas in Japan. Participants: This study utilised data from a national, longitudinal survey conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Starting in 2005, 16 738 Japanese men aged 50–59 years were recruited and sent a questionnaire each year. We analysed data for the 6-year period (2005–2010) from participants who had worked for over 20 years in the same industry (n=9727). Main outcome measures: We focused on worsening self-rated health status by occupation, education and employment contract. Results: Working in the manufacturing industry was associated with worsening self-rated health scores when compared to those working in management (HR=1.19; 95% CI 1.04 to 1.37). A relationship between education level and worsening self-rated health was also identified as follows: junior high school (HR=1.49; 95% CI 1.31 to 1.69), high school (HR=1.29; 95% CI 1.17 to 1.42), and vocational college (HR=1.25; 95% CI 1.07 to 1.46), when compared with those holding university-level qualifications. Precarious employment (HR=1.17; 95% CI 1.00 to 1.37) was also associated with worsening self-rated health status in the current study. Conclusions: This study suggests that working in manufacturing for more than 20 years and having lower education levels may have a significant impact on the self-rated health of middle-aged Japanese men. This may reflect a progressive decline in Japanese working conditions following the global financial crisis and/or the impact of lower socioeconomic status.
- Subject
- longitudinal study; lifetime employment; socioeconomic status; Japan
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1336587
- Identifier
- uon:27654
- Identifier
- ISSN:2044-6055
- Rights
- This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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