There is a long history in both epidemiology and public health of studying the health and mortality risk of doctors, and the proposed study aims to continue this trend. This history includes the famous ‘Doctors Study’ (with Doll, Bradford-Hill and Peto) which ran from 1951 until 2001 and provided some of the original and most conclusive evidence linking cigarette smoking and lung cancer (and later heart disease and stroke).
The relationship between occupation and population health is complex, but understanding their interrelationships is a policy priority. It is widely accepted that being in employment is associated with health benefits. However, there is a lack of detailed understanding about the relative mortality risks of specific occupations and whether health-related benefits of employment occur across all occupations.
Many studies have suggested that caregiving has a detrimental impact on health, thus the terminology ‘caregiver burden’ and ‘caregiver stress’. However, these conclusions are challenged by research (including from NILS and ONS-LS) that finds evidence of a comparative survivorship advantage. It is possible that while the overall effect on mortality may be beneficial, there may be sub-groups of carers who are at a higher mortality risk. The differentiating factor may be the amount of stress experienced, as Fredman et al. (2010) found high-stress caregivers had a higher mortality risk compared to both non-carers and low stress caregivers.
This study will examine morbidity, mortality, and migration between 1991, 2001, and 2011. Using individual and area level data from the NILS, I plan to compare census derived variables and health outcomes of agricultural workers against other distinct occupations. This study’s target audience will be farmers from different farming sectors and by extension their farming families. This study will analyse sub-groups of agricultural workers, their health circumstances, death rates, and migration trends against other detailed occupations; to examine variations in their demographic, socio-economic and health over time.
Modern society is changing the way we live, work and relate to each other. Digitalization is eliminating the need for everyday social interactions and consequently, issues such as social isolation and loneliness are becoming pressing public health problems. Older adults are particularly susceptible to social isolation due to a number of factors such as retirement, bereavement, loss of social contacts, declining health conditions, and other age-related major life transitions. Adverse health effects of social isolation are well established at older age, including early mortality1-3. Thus, whilst people are living longer, the quality of life experienced does not necessarily correspond with the increase in life expectancy years. This is made more problematic by global trends of a rapidly ageing population.
Among married people, loss of a spouse has been shown to be associated with excess mortality, even after controlling for potential confounding factors. This phenomenon is known as the widowhood effect. While the widowhood effect has been found in a range of different studies across different countries, relatively little is known about how the size of the widowhood effect differs across different groups of people. One early study noted that excess mortality among widowers in higher social classes was greater than that of widowers in lower social classes; however, a more recent study found no education differences in the relative risk of mortality among the bereaved.
This study will use the Northern Ireland Mortality Study (NIMS) to examine the socio-demographic and socio-economic determinants of deaths occurring in the five/six years following the 2001 Census that can be defined as ‘avoidable’. This follows on from (and builds on) an extensive review of the topic area by ONS (Wheller L, Baker A, Griffiths C, Rooney C, 2007), and will examine ‘avoidable mortality’ within a Northern Ireland context.
The study of health differences between migrant and non-migrant groups is a potential source of insight into the causes of ill-health and can contribute to debates on the relative contribution of genetic or environmental factors in the aetiology of particular diseases. Often the most significant migrant groups to a country are those from neighbouring countries, yet these groups are only infrequently studied. While a substantial strand of epidemiological research has examined health outcomes for Irish and Scottish migrants to England and Wales and Irish migrants to Scotland, there has been little research into the health of migrant groups to Northern Ireland.
