Paid employment in subjects with and without chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in five Latin American cities: the PLATINO study
OBJECTIVE: To examine the frequency of paid employment and factors influencing it in a Latin-American population-based study.
METHODS: Post-bronchodilator FEV1/FVC < 0.70 (forced expiratory volume in 1 s/forced vital capacity) was used to define COPD. Information regarding paid work was assessed by the question ‘At any time in the past year, have you worked for payment?’
RESULTS: Interviews were conducted with 5571 subjects; 5314 (759 COPD and 4554 non-COPD) subjects underwent spirometry. Among the COPD subjects, 41.8% reported having paid work vs. 57.1% of non-COPD (P < 0.0001). The number of months with paid work was reduced in COPD patients (10.5 ± 0.17 vs. 10.9 ± 0.06, P < 0.05). The main factors associated with having paid work in COPD patients were male sex (OR 0.33, 95%CI 0.23–0.47), higher education level (OR 1.05, 95%CI 1.01–1.09) and younger age (OR 0.90, 95%CI 0.88–0.92). COPD was not a significant contributor to employment (OR 0.83, 95%CI 0.69–1.00, P = 0.054) in the entire population.
CONCLUSIONS: Although the proportion of persons with paid work is lower in COPD, having COPD appears not to have a significant impact on obtaining paid employment in the overall population of developing countries.
Keywords: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; economic burden; epidemiology; indirect costs
Document Type: Regular Paper
Affiliations: 1: Servicio de Neumonología, Hospital Universitario de Caracas, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela 2: University of California Los Angeles School of Public Health, Los Angeles, California, USA 3: Institute of Respiratory Diseases, Tlalpan, Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico 4: Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de la República, Hospital Maciel, Montevideo, Uruguay 5: Federal University of São Paulo, Largo Senador Raul Cardoso, São Paulo,Brazil 6: Departamento de Salud Publica, Facultad de Medicina, Pontifícia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile 7: Catedra de Neumologia, Facultad de Medicina, Pontifícia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile 8: Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Publication date: 01 September 2011
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