Trends in health and health inequality during the Japanese economic stagnation: Implications for a healthy planet.

Introduction: Human health and wellbeing may depend on economic growth, the implication being that policymakers need to choose between population health and the health of ecosystems. Over two decades of low economic growth, Japan's life expectancy grew. Here we assess the temporal changes of subjective health and health inequality during the long-term low economic growth period.

Attachment in older adults is stably associated with health and quality of life: findings from a 14-year follow-up of the Whitehall II study.

Secure adult attachment may promote health and well-being in old age, yet is understudied in this life phase. Consequently, we aim to examine associations between adult attachment and mental and physical health and quality of life, both concurrently and longitudinally. We used three phases of the Whitehall II study ( = 5,222 to 6,713).

Job Quality in the Late Career in Sweden, Japan and the United States.

Increasing numbers of older workers continue to work after being eligible to claim a state pension, yet little is known about the quality of these jobs. We examine how psychosocial and physical job quality as well as job satisfaction vary over the late career in three contrasting national settings: Sweden, Japan and the United States. Analyses using random effects modelling drew on data from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health ( = 13,936-15,520), Japanese Study of Ageing and Retirement ( = 3704) and the Health and Retirement Study ( = 6239 and 8002).

How does work impact daily sleep quality? A within-individual study using actigraphy and self-reports over the retirement transition.

This study examined how the cessation of work at retirement affects daily measures of actigraphy-measured and self-rated sleep quality. Time in bed or asleep and stress at bedtime were examined as potential mechanisms. In total 117 employed participants who were aged 60-72 years and planned to retire soon were recruited to the Swedish Retirement Study.

How consistently does sleep quality improve at retirement? Prospective analyses with group-based trajectory models.

Growing evidence indicates that retiring from paid work is associated, at least in the short-term, with dramatic reductions in sleep difficulties and more restorative sleep. However, much is still not known, in particular how universal these improvements are, how long they last, and whether they relate to the work environment. A methodological challenge concerns how to model time when studying abrupt changes such as retirement.

An Increasing Incidence of Upper Gastrointestinal Disorders Over 23 Years: A Prospective Population-Based Study in Sweden.

Introduction: We hypothesized that the prevalence of functional dyspepsia and gastroesophageal reflux disease in the community may be increasing.

Methods: Randomly selected adults were surveyed on 4 occasions: 1988 (n = 1,151, 21-79 years, response rate [rr] = 90%), 1989 (n = 1,097, 22-80 years, rr = 87%), 1995 (n = 1,139, 20-85 years, rr = 76%), and 2011 (n = 1,175, 20-93 years, rr = 63%).

Results: In functional dyspepsia, the odds of postprandial distress syndrome tripled over 23 years' follow-up (odds ratio [OR]: 3.

How does cessation of work affect sleep? Prospective analyses of sleep duration, timing and efficiency from the Swedish Retirement Study.

Several strands of research indicate that work competes for time with sleep, but to what extent the timing and duration of sleep is affected by work is not known. Retirement offers a quasi-experimental life transition to study this in a within-individual study design. The few existing studies report that people sleep longer and later after retirement but mainly rely on self-reported data or between-individual analyses.

Sickness absence and sickness presence in relation to office type: An observational study of employer-recorded and self-reported data from Sweden.

Objectives: Previous research suggesting that open-plan office environments are associated with higher rates of sickness absence rely on self-reports which can be affected by recall bias. This paper investigates the associations of sickness absence, obtained from employer records as well as self-reports, with office type (cell offices and different sizes of open-plan offices). It additionally studies whether office type is associated with sickness presence.

Reciprocal relations between work stress and insomnia symptoms: A prospective study.

Work stress and poor sleep are closely related in cross-sectional data, but evidence from prospective data is limited. We analysed how perceived stress and work stressors (work demands, decision authority and workplace social support) are related to key dimensions of insomnia over time, using structural equation modelling. Biennial measurements from a large sample of the working population in Sweden enabled us to analyse both the relationship from stress to sleep as well as that from sleep to stress.

A comparison of the B-spline group-based trajectory model with the polynomial group-based trajectory model for identifying trajectories of depressive symptoms around old-age retirement.

The life event of retirement may be associated with changes in levels of depressive symptoms. The use of polynomial group-based trajectory modelling allows any changes to vary between different groups in a sample. A new approach, estimating these models using B-splines rather than polynomials, may improve modelling of complex changes in depressive symptoms at retirement.

Job strain and loss of healthy life years between ages 50 and 75 by sex and occupational position: analyses of 64 934 individuals from four prospective cohort studies.

Objectives: Poor psychosocial working conditions increase the likelihood of various types of morbidity and may substantially limit quality of life and possibilities to remain in paid work. To date, however, no studies to our knowledge have quantified the extent to which poor psychosocial working conditions reduce healthy or chronic disease-free life expectancy, which was the focus of this study.

Methods: Data were derived from four cohorts with repeat data: the Finnish Public Sector Study (Finland), GAZEL (France), the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (Sweden) and Whitehall II (UK).

Informal Care and Sleep Disturbance Among Caregivers in Paid Work: Longitudinal Analyses From a Large Community-Based Swedish Cohort Study.

Study Objectives: To examine cross-sectionally and prospectively whether informal caregiving is related to sleep disturbance among caregivers in paid work.

Methods: Participants (N = 21604) in paid work from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health. Sleeping problems were measured with a validated scale of sleep disturbance (Karolinska Sleep Questionnaire).

Do work and family care histories predict health in older women?

Background: Social and policy changes in the last several decades have increased women's options for combining paid work with family care. We explored whether specific combinations of work and family care over the lifecourse are associated with variations in women's later life health.

Methods: We used sequence analysis to group women in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing according to their work histories and fertility.

Is being in paid work beyond state pension age beneficial for health? Evidence from England using a life-course approach.

Background: Given the current policy emphasis in many Western societies on extending working lives, we investigated the health effects of being in paid work beyond state pension age (SPA). Until now, work has largely focused on the health of those who exit the labour force early.

Methods: Our data come from waves 2-4 of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, including the life history interview at wave 3.

Relationship between employment histories and frailty trajectories in later life: evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.

Background: Given the acceleration of population ageing and policy changes to extend working lives, evidence is needed on the ability of older adults to work for longer. To understand more about the health impacts of work, this study examined the relationship between employment histories before retirement and trajectories of frailty thereafter.

Methods: The sample comprised 2765 women and 1621 men from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.

Physical occupational exposures and health expectancies in a French occupational cohort.

Objectives: To examine the relationships of strenuous and hazardous working conditions and rotating shifts that involve night working with life expectancy in good perceived health and life expectancy without chronic disease.

Methods: The sample contained male gas and electricity workers from the French GAZEL cohort (n=13 393). Six measures of physical working conditions were examined: Self-reports from 1989 and 1990 of ergonomic strain, physical danger, rotating shifts that involve night working and perceived physical strain; company records of workplace injuries and a job-exposure matrix of chemical exposures.

Does Personality Have a Different Impact on Self-Rated Distraction, Job Satisfaction, and Job Performance in Different Office Types?

This study investigates the joint effect of office type (cell, shared room, open-plan, and flex) and personality, measured by the Big Five personality traits, on self-rated measures of distraction, job satisfaction, and job performance (measured by professional efficacy). Regression analyses with interactions between personality and office type were conducted on 1205 participants working in 5 organizations from both the private and public sectors. While few interactions were observed in the cases of professional efficacy and job satisfaction, several were observed between personality traits and office type on the level of distraction reported.

Social inequalities in self-rated health in Ukraine in 2007: the role of psychosocial, material and behavioural factors.

Background: Despite Ukraine's large population, few studies have examined social inequalities in health. This study describes Ukrainian educational inequalities in self-rated health and assesses how far psychosocial, material and behavioural factors account for the education gradient in health.

Methods: Data were analyzed from the 2007 wave of the Ukrainian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey.

Mid-life occupational grade and quality of life following retirement: a 16-year follow-up of the French GAZEL study.

Objectives: This article aims to contribute to the literature on life course influences upon quality of life by examining pathways linking social position in middle age to quality of life following retirement in French men and women.

Method: Data are from the GAZEL cohort study of employees at the French national gas and electricity company. A finely grained measure of occupational grade in 1989 was obtained from company records.

Physical occupational exposures during working life and quality of life after labour market exit: results from the GAZEL study.

Objective: To investigate variations in quality of life at older ages, we take a life course perspective to analyse long-term effects of physical working conditions upon quality of life after retirement. In doing so, we study to what extent these associations are explained by individuals' health at older ages.

Method: We use administrative data and self-administered questionnaire responses from the French GAZEL cohort.