OBJECTIVES To compare the impact of the combination of etanercept (ETN) and MTX with MTX alone on work productivity among MTX-naïve patients with active early RA over a 12-month period. METHODS The COMET (COmbination of Methotrexate and ETanercept) trial was a 2-year double-blind randomized clinical trial. Absenteeism during the first year was measured and it included: (i) number of missed wo...

INTRODUCTION Stem cell transplantation has been used for many years to treat haematological malignancies that could not be cured by other treatments. Despite this medical breakthrough, mortality rates remain high. Our purpose was to evaluate labour productivity losses associated with premature mortality due to blood cancer in recipients of stem cell transplantations. METHODS We collected prim...

OBJECTIVE To review literature on the impact of bipolar disorder on the workplace, with respect to costs to employers, workplace productivity and functioning, and any employer-initiated programs implemented with the aim of improving work attendance and performance. STUDY DESIGN Systematic literature review. METHODS Original studies relating to bipolar disorder in the workplace were identifi...

There are no published data on the economic burden for specific West Nile virus (WNV) clinical syndromes (i.e., fever, meningitis, encephalitis, and acute flaccid paralysis [AFP]). We estimated initial hospital and lost-productivity costs from 80 patients hospitalized with WNV disease in Colorado during 2003; 38 of these patients were followed for 5 years to determine long-term medical and lost...

Myriad hypotheses have been advanced to explain the dismal performance of the post-1990 Japanese economy. In this paper we use plant and firm data to investigate the issue. The low rate of productivity growth in Japan is also often seen as a product of Japanese MNEs offshoring production and shutting plants that are relative to others in their industry, high productivity. We find that this is t...

Migraine imposes an enormous health burden on individual headache sufferers and on society. The condition affects about 18% of women and about 6% of men across their lifespan. Because prevalence peaks during the most productive years, between the ages of 25 and 55, migraine is an important cause of lost work time. Despite the widespread underdiagnosis and undertreatment of migraine, health care...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the health care expenditure and productivity losses due to smoking. DESIGN A retrospective cohort study of a random population sample of 5,247 men aged 25-59 years from the provinces of Kuopio and North Karelia in eastern Finland. Subjects initially surveyed in 1972 were linked to a set of national registers through their social security identification numbers and follow...

BACKGROUND In 2001, 6.3 million passengers were involved in motor vehicle crashes. This study aimed to determine the number of work days lost as a result of motor vehicle crashes and factors that influenced people's return to work. METHODS This was a retrospective, population based cohort study of occupants in motor vehicles involved in crashes from the 1993-2001 Crashworthiness Data System p...

In this paper, topological properties of Wijsman hyperspaces are investigated. We study the existence of isolated points in Wijsman hyperspaces. We show that every Tychonoff space can be embedded as a closed subspace in the Wijsman hyperspace of a complete metric space which is locally R.