BACKGROUND High sickness absence is associated with poor health status, but it is not known whether low levels of sickness absence among people with poor health predict future health improvement. OBJECTIVE To examine the association between medically certified sickness absence and subsequent change in health among initially unhealthy employees. METHODS 5210 employees (3762 men, 1448 women) ...

An exemption in the Swedish Employment Security Act (LAS) in 2001 made it possible for employers with a maximum of ten employees to exempt two workers from the seniority rule at times of redundancies. Using this within-country enforcement variation, the relationship between employment protection and sickness absence among employees is examined. The average treatment effect from the exemption is...

Records of personal sickness absence, including all spells of one day's duration or more, have been kept at this refinery for more than 20 years. The distributions of sickness spells and also calendar days of absence have been analysed for single years and also for periods of up to 20 years' continuous service for the 1,350 hourly paid male employees. It is shown that both these measures of sic...

BACKGROUND While back pain and stressful work environment are shown to be important causes of sickness absence the effect of psychosocial resources on sickness absence, and on self assessed work ability, is less commonly investigated. The aim of this study was to assess these associations in a two-year follow-up study. METHODS 341 working people aged 45 to 64, randomly drawn from the populati...