BACKGROUND Obesity is an increasing public health problem. A small number of studies have examined the relationship between obesity and sickness absence, with mixed results, particularly regarding short-term sickness absence. AIMS To determine if obesity is associated with short- and long-term sickness absence and to investigate the mechanisms that may underlie any association. METHODS Cros...

BACKGROUND Despite a considerable increase in claims for long-term sickness benefits, and the impact of certifying sickness upon general practitioner (GP) workload, little is known about transition to long-term incapacity for work. AIM To explore the relationship between patient factors and the transition from short-term to long-term work incapacity, in particular focusing on mild mental heal...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the performance of a questionnaire on sickness absence due to back pain and respiratory disorders with the view of using sickness absence as a measure of morbidity. METHODS A cross sectional survey was conducted among 511 male workers aged 20-65, drawn from the personnel register of an animal feed mill. The response was 404 (79%) participants. Data on sickness absence in...

This study examines predictors of sickness absence in patients presenting to a health practitioner with acute/ subacute low back pain (LBP). Aims of this study were to identify baseline-variables that detect patients with a new LBP episode at risk of sickness absence and to identify prognostic models for sickness absence at different time points after initial presentation. Prospective cohort st...

Sickness absence, or as it can be defined more precisely, absence from work that is attributed to sickness by the employee and accepted as such by the employer, remains high on the agenda for governments in the European Union (EU). Over the last decade most EU governments have implemented legislation that changes social security payments for the initial period of sickness absence. This has had ...

There is a consensus that Chernobyl accident has induced thyroid cancer increase in children and adolescents. The UNSCEAR report concluded that no somatic disorders other than thyroid cancer were caused by radiation exposure due to the accident except for acute radiation sickness occurred to the people within the Power Plant at the time of the accident. A hypothesis is discussed in this paper t...

OBJECTIVE Although sickness absence often is a process over time, most studies have treated the phenomenon as a discrete event and focused more on its causes than its consequences. We aimed to examine whether various patterns of previous long-term sickness absence were associated with current low perceived social support at work. METHOD This is a historical cohort study based on data from a p...

A study was undertaken to investigate knowledge, attitudes and practices about sleeping sickness (human African trypanosomiasis) among communities living in and around Serengeti National Park (SENAPA). Structured questionnaires were administered to a total of 1490 consenting participants. Of the respondents, 924 (62%) knew sleeping sickness, and 807 (87.3%) knew the right place to seek healthca...

BACKGROUND We established a rat model of chronic mountain sickness using acetyl-L-cysteine. Then we studied the effects and mechanisms of acetyl-L-cysteine (Da) in rats with chronic mountain sickness using nuclear magnetic resonance (H1-NMR) metabolomics methods. MATERIAL AND METHODS Using NMR spectroscopy combined with pattern recognition and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant ana...