Search

This study aims at evaluating the chronic disease risk related to prolonged work in long-hour schedules for eight major chronic diseases: heart disease, non-skin cancer, arthritis, diabetes, chronic lung disease, asthma, chronic depression, and hypertension.The study used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 covering 32 years of job history (1978 to 2009) for 7492 respondents. Logistic regression analyses were performed to test the relationship between average weekly work hours, and the reported prevalence of those conditions for each individual.Regularly working long hours over 32 years was significantly associated with elevated risks of heart disease, non-skin cancer, arthritis, and diabetes. The observed risk was much larger among women than among men.Working long-hour schedules over many years increases the risk for some specific chronic diseases, especially for women.

The United States has many resources for providing services to workers with disabilities, including state-based workers’ compensation insurance and federal programs such as Social Security Disability Insurance. Legislation exists to protect the rights of people with disabilities, provide wage protection in event of disability, supply rehabilitation services, and support return to productive work. However, there is no central authority for coordinating work disability issues, resulting in fragmentation, inefficiency, and redundancy among systems. Of considerable concern is the ambient atmosphere of distrust that too often taints efforts to create a more harmonious social system for addressing work disability needs.

Background: With the increasing incidence of births of very preterm very-low-birth-weight infants, there is a demand for echocardiographic reference values of cardiac dimensions. Objectives: The aim of this study was to provide reference values of cardiac valve annulus diameters in a cohort of extremely preterm very-low-birth-weight neonates and to correlate these with patient characteristics. Methods: Valve diameters of 376 infants of < 32 weeks’ gestation and with a birth weight of ≤2,000 g were measured using 2-dimensional echocardiography. Correlations between valve diameters and patient characteristics (birth length/weight, body surface area, gestational age, and sex) were assessed. Birth weight was used to establish linear regression models. Inter- and intraobserver agreement was assessed through intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) analysis. Results: Substantial variability was found (aortic valve mean [standard deviation; range]: 5.0 mm [0.6; 3.7–6.5]; pulmonic valve: 5.8 mm [0.8; 3.4–7.9]; mitral valve: 8.0 mm [1.0; 5.5–10.5]; tricuspid valve: 7.6 mm [1.2; 4.9–10.6]). There was a moderate correlation between birth weight and valve diameter (R2 aortic valve: 0.36; pulmonic valve: 0.20; mitral valve: 0.24; tricuspid valve: 0.24). Adequate intraobserver (ICC range 0.74–0.91) and interobserver agreement (ICC range 0.77–0.89) was found. Conclusions: Our study provides ready-to-use reference values for cardiac valve annulus diameters for extremely preterm infants.

Introduction Recent studies suggest that female workers face a greater risk of long-term chronic disease than male workers. A 2008 Mexican study indicated that older female workers have an elevated prevalence of arthritis, diabetes, and hypertension compared to men. A recent U.S. study showed that women working long hours have an elevated risk for chronic disease later in life compared to men. South Korean researchers reported that women in nonstandard jobs are more likely to suffer chronic mental disorders. However, little is known about why female workers have a comparatively greater risk of long term chronic disease. Methods This study involves conducting a systematic literature review followed by a meta analysis of studies involving chronic disease among working women, particularly focusing on populations of working women who are aged fifty and older. The review also focuses on identifying distinctive aspects of women’s work in specific occupational groups in an international context. Result Initial results from the analysis suggest several explanations: a) the evidence is relatively strong that working long hours for extended periods of time raises the likelihood for chronic disease, b) the literature suggests that shift work and disruption of circadian rhythms among women can create long-term chronic health problems, c) women are often required to perform multiple roles at home and work which place greater stress on the women’s ability to meet those additional responsibilities, d) because of those obligations, many working women may not have sufficient time to take care of their health, and e) some demanding physical tasks might be difficult to perform because of inherent gender-based biological constraints (e.g., performing heavy materials-handling tasks). Discussion More specific empirical study of the reasons for elevated chronic disease risk among working women is needed. Additionally, workplace-based interventions to screen affected women for chronic disease should be adopted.

Appointment wait times are a neglected dimension of children’s access to psychiatry. We systematically examined how long an adolescent waits for a new patient appointment with a psychiatrist for routine medication management. From state directories, we identified 578 providers of adolescent psychiatric care in Ohio. Researchers posing as parents telephoned randomly selected offices, seeking care for a hypothetical 14-year-old patient under different scenarios. Overall, we measured 498 wait times at 140 unique offices. The median wait time was 50 days (interquartile range = 29–81 days). In adjusted models, adolescents with Medicaid waited longer than those with private insurance, especially during the spring (geometric mean = 50.9 vs. 41.9 days; p = 0.02). Wait times also varied markedly by region, with geometric means ranging from 22.4 to 75.1 days (p