Swedish Survey Of Living Conditions Research Articles

National data study showed that adolescents living in poorer households and with one parent were more likely to be bullied.

AimThe aim of this study was to assess whether sociodemographic household characteristics were associated with which Swedish adolescents were more likely to be bullied.MethodsThe data were derived from the Swedish Living Conditions Survey and its child supplements from the survey years 2008–2011. The analyses included information on 3951 adolescents aged 10–18 years. Exposure to bullying was reported by adolescents, and information on sociodemographic household characteristics was reported by parents and obtained from official registers. Binary logistic regression was used to analyse the data.ResultsAdolescents were more likely to be bullied if they lived in households with no cash margin, defined as the ability to pay an unexpected bill of 8000 Swedish Kronor or about 800 Euros, and if they lived with just one custodial parent. In the unadjusted analyses, elevated risks were identified if adolescents lived in working class households and had unemployed and foreign‐born parents. However, these associations were at least partly accounted for by other sociodemographic household characteristics, in particular the lack of a cash margin.ConclusionThis study showed that Swedish adolescents living in households with more limited financial resources had an increased risk of being bullied, supporting results from previous international research.

Neoliberalism and the recommodification of health inequalities: A case study of the Swedish welfare state 1980 to 2011.

This paper examines the effects of neoliberalism on health inequalities through an empirical examination of the recommodification of the social determinants of health. It uses a detailed case study of changes to three specific welfare policy domains in Sweden: unemployment, healthcare, and pensions. Using time series data from the repeat cross-sectional Swedish Living Conditions Survey for 1980-2011, it examines: (1) the effects of reductions in the replacement rate value of unemployment benefit on inequalities in self-reported general health between the employed and the unemployed; (2) the effects of reductions in the replacement rate value of pensions on educational inequalities in self-reported general health among pensioners; and (3) the effects of the increase in user charges on inequalities in having visited a doctor in the past 3 months by educational level. The results suggest mixed effects of welfare state recommodification on health inequalities: inequalities increased between the Swedish employed and unemployed, yet they did not increase in the retired population, and inequalities in access to healthcare also remained steady during the study period. The paper concludes that the association between recommodification and health inequalities in Sweden is stronger regarding unemployment benefits than pensions or healthcare, and that this may relate to the stigmatisation of the unemployed.

The recommodification of healthcare? A case study of user charges and inequalities in access to healthcare in Sweden 1980–2005

BackgroundUser charges in Swedish healthcare have increased during recent decades. This can be seen in terms of the recommodification of healthcare: making healthcare access more dependent on market position. This study investigates whether the increase in user charges had an impact on educational inequalities in access to healthcare in Sweden between 1980 and 2005. MethodsData from the Swedish Living Conditions Survey were used to calculate the odds ratios of access to healthcare for the low and higher educated in Sweden, and the results were stratified by health status (Good and Not good health) for each year 1980–2005. These odds ratios were correlated with the average user charge for healthcare. ResultsThere were no educational differences in healthcare access in the group with Good health. In the group with Not good health, the higher educated had higher rates of healthcare access than the lower educated. Inequalities in access to healthcare were relatively stable over time, with a slight increase among those with Not good health. DiscussionRecommodification has had only a small association with access to healthcare in Sweden. The Swedish system has integral protections that protect the vulnerable against rising healthcare costs. This is an important caveat for other countries that are considering introducing or raising user charges.

Healthy life years in old age: Swedish development 1980-2010 according to different health indicators.

To investigate the development of healthy life expectancy from 65 years (HLE65) in Sweden in the period 1980 and 2010 by using two different health indicators: self-rated health and the global activity limitation indicator (GALI). Sources of data for the HLE computations were Swedish national mortality statistics and the nationwide Swedish Survey of Living Conditions (SSLC), which have been conducted biennially by Statistics Sweden since 1974. We used the Sullivan method for calculations of HLE. A decomposition into mortality and disability effect has been made in accordance with the method devised by Nusselder. Life expectancy at age 65 (LE65) increased by 3.1 years for women and 4.0 years for men from 1980/85 to 2006/11. Regardless of which health measure investigated - self-rated health or GALI - HLE65 increased between the periods 1980/85 to 2006/2011 more rapidly than LE65 and as a consequence the years with bad self-rated health and years with activity limitations decreased. These increases as well as the decreases were significant (p<0.05). The Swedish LE65 and HLE65 development, as judged by the SSLC study, are compatible with the postponement hypothesis and there is even a clear tendency for compression. Thus, the years with bad self-rated health and years with activity limitations are postponed to a higher age and the number of those years have decreased. From this respect, the Swedish development looks positive. The need of old age care in 2010 would have been much higher if it had been expansion - not postponement - of bad self-rated health and years with activity limitations during the time period.

ALL IN IT TOGETHER? THE EFFECTS OF RECESSION ON POPULATION HEALTH AND HEALTH INEQUALITIES IN ENGLAND AND SWEDEN, 1991-2010.

This article is the first to comparatively examine the effects of two recessions on population health and health inequalities in the two historically contrasting welfare states of England and Sweden. Data from 1991-2010 on self-reported general health, age, gender, and educational status were obtained from the Health Survey for England, the Swedish Survey of Living Conditions, and the European Union Survey of Income and Living Conditions, for individuals aged over 16. Generalized linear models were used to test the effects of recessions on self-reported health and educational inequalities in health. Overall, recessions had a significant positive effect on the health of women--but not men-in both England (4%) and Sweden (7%). In England, this improvement was only enjoyed by the most educated women, with the health of less educated women declining during recession. In contrast, in Sweden, the health of all women improved significantly during recession regardless of their educational status, although the most educated benefitted the most. Relative educational inequalities in self-reported health therefore increased during recessions in both countries by 14 percent (England) and 17 percent (Sweden) but for different reasons. This study suggests that Sweden's welfare state protects the health of all during recessions.

Aspects of Responsive Design with Applications to the Swedish Living Conditions Survey

Abstract In recent literature on survey nonresponse, new indicators of the quality of the data collection have been proposed. These include indicators of balance and representativity (of the set of respondents) and distance (between respondents and nonrespondents), computed on available auxiliary variables. We use such indicators in conjunction with paradata from the Swedish CATI system to examine the inflow of data (as a function of the call attempt number) for the 2009 Swedish Living Conditions Survey (LCS). We then use the LCS 2009 data file to conduct several “experiments in retrospect”. They consist in interventions, at suitable chosen points and driven by the prospects of improved balance and reduced distance. The survey estimates computed on the resulting final response set are likely to be less biased. Cost savings realized by fewer calls can be redirected to enhance quality of other aspects of the survey design.

Improved survival in both men and women with diabetes between 1980 and 2004 – a cohort study in Sweden

BackgroundIn Sweden, diabetes prevalence is increasing in spite of unchanged incidence, indicating improved survival. In recent US studies mortality in diabetic subjects has decreased over three decades, but only in men. Our aim was to study mortality over time in diabetic subjects.MethodsThe annual Swedish Living Conditions Survey from 1980 to 2004 has been record-linked to the Cause of Death Register in order to study trends in mortality risk for those reporting diabetes as a chronic illness. Survival and the relative mortality risk within 5 years of follow-up have been calculated for a random sample of men and women aged 40–84 years with (n = 3,589) and without diabetes (n = 85,685) for the period 1980 to 2004. Poisson regression models were used.ResultsThe age-adjusted mortality risk relative to non-diabetics within 5 years of follow-up for men was doubled during all periods. The relative risk for women was initially about 2.5, with a substantial drop in mortality in 1995–1999 to 1.45 although it increased to 1.90 in the last period. Using models that took into consideration the presence of heart disease, hypertension, daily smoking, and socio-economic status at the initial interview did not change the relative mortality risk. The age-adjusted 10-year observed survival rate for men with diabetes increased from 41.4% 1980–1984 to 51.5% in 1995–1999. The observed survival for women increased from 43.7% to 61.0%.ConclusionSurvival rates have improved in subjects with diabetes since the early 1980s, more so in women than in men, thereby decreasing the gap to non-diabetic women.

Sickness absence poses a threat to the Swedish Welfare State: a cross-sectional study of sickness absence and self-reported illness

BackgroundThe increasing cost of public social sickness insurance poses a serious economic threat to the Swedish welfare state. In recent years, expenditures for social insurance in general, as well as social sickness insurance in particular, have risen steeply in Sweden. This cross-sectional study analyzed the association between sickness absence (SA) and self-reported reduced working capacity due to a longstanding illness (>3 months), as well between SA and a number of other health problems.MethodsSelf-reported data on longstanding illness and resultant reduced working capacity, socioeconomic factors, working environment, psychosomatic complaints, anxiety, and general health were obtained for 22,281 employed (paid) persons aged 25 to 64 years. These data were retrieved from the Swedish Living Conditions Survey for 1995 to 2002. National civic registration numbers, replaced with serial numbers to ensure anonymity, were used to link these data to individual-level SA records from the National Social Insurance Board. A logistic regression model was used to estimate the odds ratio of the main outcome variable for the three levels of the SA variable (0–28, 29–90, >90 days/year).ResultsThere was an obvious increasing gradient in length of SA and increasing odds of reporting reduced working capacity. Odds ratios ranged from 3.5 to 19.0; i.e., those with more than ninety days of SA had 19.0 times higher odds of reporting reduced working capacity than those with 0–28 days of SA a year. This very strong association changed less than 10% after adjusting for demographic, socioeconomic, and working environment characteristics. A total of 48.7% of persons on sick leave ≥ 29 days reported no longstanding illness and reduced working capacity. Of these persons, about 43% reported one or more other health problem.ConclusionWe confirmed that longstanding illness that results in self-reported reduced working capacity is an important variable related to length of SA, even after taking important confounders into consideration. We found a little less than half of those on sick leave reported no reduced working capacity due to longstanding illness, and some of these reported no other health problems. However, it is possible that some respondents had health problems not captured in the survey.