The Contribution of Alcohol Use, Other Lifestyle Factors and Working Conditions to Socioeconomic Differences in Sickness Absence.

INTRODUCTION: This study investigates how alcohol use contributes to the social gradient in sickness absence. Other factors assessed include lifestyle factors (smoking, physical activity and body mass index), physical and psychosocial working conditions. METHODS: The study used baseline data from the Stockholm public health cohort 2006, with an analytical sample of 17,008 respondents aged 25-64 years. Outcome variables included self-reported short-term (<14 days) and register-based long-term (>14 days) sickness absence. Socioeconomic position (SEP) was measured by occupational class. Alcohol use was measured by average weekly volume and frequency of heavy episodic drinking. Negative binominal regression was used to estimate sex-specific SEP differences in sickness absence, before and after adjusting for alcohol use and the additional explanatory factors. RESULTS: Adjusting for alcohol use attenuated the SEP differences in long-term sickness absence by 20% for men and 14% for women. Alcohol use explained a smaller proportion of the differences in short-term sickness absence. Alcohol use in combination with other lifestyle factors attenuated the SEP differences (20-35%) for both outcomes. Physical working conditions explained more than half of the gradient in long-term sickness absence, whereas psychosocial conditions had greater impact on short-term sickness absence among men. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: Alcohol use explains a substantial proportion of the SEP disparities in long-term sickness absence among men. The effect is smaller among women and for short-term sickness absence. Our findings support the notion that physical working conditions constitute the key explanatory variable for SEP differences in long-term sickness absence, but add that psychosocial working conditions have greater impact on the gradient in short-term sickness absence among men.

Stability and change in alcohol habits of different socio-demographic subgroups--a cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Stability in alcohol habits varies over time and in subgroups, but there are few longitudinal studies assessing stability in alcohol habits by socio-demographic subgroups and potential predictors of stability and change. The aim was to study stability and change in alcohol habits by sex, age, and socio-economic position (SEP). METHODS: Data derived from two longitudinal population based studies in Sweden; the PART study comprising 19 457 individuals aged 20-64 years in 1998-2000, and the Stockholm Public Health Cohort (SPHC) with 50 067 individuals aged 18-84 years in 2002. Both cohorts were followed-up twice; PART 2000-2003 and 2010, and SPHC 2007 and 2010. Alcohol habits were measured with the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), and with normal weekly alcohol consumption (NWAC). Stability in alcohol habits was measured with intraclass correlation. Odds ratios were estimated in multinomial logistic regression analysis to predict stability in alcohol habits. RESULTS: For the two drinking measures there were no consistent patterns of stability in alcohol habits by sex or educational level. The stability was higher for older age groups and self-employed women. To be a man aged 30-39 at baseline predicted both increase and decrease in alcohol habits. CONCLUSIONS: The findings illustrate higher stability in alcohol habits with increasing age and among self-employed women with risky alcohol habits. To be a man and the age 30-39 predicted change in alcohol habits. No conclusive pattern of socio-economic position as predictor of change in alcohol habits was found and other studies of potential predictors seem warranted.

The contribution of alcohol use and other lifestyle factors to socioeconomic differences in all-cause mortality in a Swedish cohort.

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS: A relationship between socioeconomic position (SEP) and mortality has been found in high-income countries. One possible explanation is socioeconomic differentials in health behaviours. The aim was to investigate to what degree the association between SEP and all-cause mortality is explained by differences in alcohol use and other lifestyle factors. DESIGN AND METHODS: The study was based on data from a large public health survey from Stockholm County in 2002, with 5 year follow-up for all-cause mortality. Proportional hazard models estimated the effect of education, occupational class and income on all-cause mortality, before and after adjusting for alcohol use (both separate and combined effects of levels and patterns of drinking), smoking, physical activity and body mass index. RESULTS: The prevalence of lifestyle factors showed a marked social gradient. All three SEP indicators showed higher mortality for the most disadvantaged SEP group than in the least disadvantaged group. Adjusting for a combined measure of alcohol use attenuated the SEP differences in mortality by a fifth, whereas adjusting for volume of consumption resulted in considerably smaller attenuations. Adjusting for smoking resulted in attenuations of 6-18%. In the fully adjusted model, physical activity and body mass index did not account for the socioeconomic differences in mortality beyond that of alcohol and smoking.‬ DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Irrespective of whether SEP is defined by education, occupational class or income, the unequal distribution of hazardous alcohol use and smoking contributes to a notable proportion of the socioeconomic differences in mortality in Sweden. [Sydén L, Landberg J. The contribution of alcohol use and other lifestyle factors to socioeconomic differences in all-cause mortality in a Swedish cohort. Drug Alcohol Rev 2016;00:000-000].

The contribution of alcohol use and other behavioural, material and social factors to socio-economic differences in alcohol-related disorders in a Swedish cohort.

AIMS: We estimated the degree to which the relationship between socio-economic position (SEP) and alcohol-related disorders is attenuated after adjustment for levels and patterns of drinking, behavioural, material and social factors. DESIGN: A longitudinal cohort study with baseline in 2002, with linkage to register data on patient care and deaths in 2002-11 to yield the outcome measures. SETTING: Stockholm County, Sweden. PARTICIPANTS: Respondents to baseline survey aged 25-64 (n = 17 440) with information on all studied covariates. MEASUREMENTS: Occupational class was the studied SEP indicator and a combined measure of volume of weekly alcohol consumption and frequency of heavy episodic drinking, smoking, employment status, income, social support, marital status and education, all at baseline, were the studied covariates. Alcohol-related disorders (n = 388) were indicated by first register entries on alcohol-related medical care or death during the follow-up. FINDINGS: Unskilled workers had an approximately four times greater risk of alcohol-related disorders than higher non-manual employees, hazard ratio (HR) = 4.08 (2.78, 5.98). After adjustment for alcohol use, the SEP difference in risk for alcohol-related harm fell by a fourth for the same group, HR = 2.91 (1.96, 4.33). The difference was reduced further when behavioural factors and material factors were taken into account, HR = 2.09 (1.34, 3.26), whereas adjusting for social factors and attained education resulted in smaller reductions. CONCLUSIONS: Socio-economic differences in alcohol use explain one fourth of the socio-economic position differences in alcohol-related disorders in Stockholm, Sweden. Hazardous alcohol use and other behavioural, material and social factors together explain nearly 60% of the socio-economic position differences in alcohol-related disorders.