Neighborhood social participation, use of anxiolytic-hypnotic drugs, and women's propensity for disability pension: a multilevel analysis

Benzodiazepine use among mothers of small children: a register-based cohort study

AIMS

To compare benzodiazepine (BZD) purchases in different groups of mothers of small children.

DESIGN

Prospective population-based cohort study based on the Finnish social and health care registers.

SETTING

Finnish women of child-bearing age.

PARTICIPANTS

All women who gave birth in 2002 in Finland (n = 54 519).

MEASUREMENTS

Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to create a typology of mothers according to their substance abuse status, psychiatric disorders and socio-demographic characteristics. The mothers were followed-up yearly for purchases of benzodiazepines, starting 4 years before the child's birth and continuing up to the child's 7th birthday. BZD purchases in different mother groups were compared using negative binomial hurdle models.

FINDINGS

The five mother types identified by LCA were mothers with substance abuse (1%), mothers with psychiatric disorders (1%), mothers with a risk of social marginalization (11%), mothers with minor social problems (18%) and mothers with no identified problems (69%; the comparison group). Mothers with substance abuse problems had the highest odds of purchasing BZDs [odds ratio OR = 27.5, 95%CI = 22.9-33.0; RR = 20.2, 95%CI = 14.9-27.3. The change in time was similar in all groups: the probability of purchasing and the number of purchases were lowest during pregnancy and the year of the child's birth.

CONCLUSIONS

In Finland, among mothers of young children, prevalence of benzodiazepine use is reduced during pregnancy and the child's first year, and then increases as the child grows older. Mothers with substance abuse and psychiatric disorders are at particularly high risk of benzodiazepine use.

Why do poor people perceive poor neighbourhoods? The role of objective neighbourhood features and psychosocial factors

Compared to people with a high socioeconomic status, those with a lower socioeconomic status are more likely to perceive their neighbourhood as unattractive and unsafe, which is associated with their lower levels of physical activity. Agreement between objective and perceived environmental factors is often found to be moderate or low, so it is questionable to what extent 'creating supportive neighbourhoods' would change neighbourhood perceptions. This study among residents (N=814) of fourteen neighbourhoods in the city of Eindhoven (the Netherlands), investigated to what extent socioeconomic differences in perceived neighbourhood safety and perceived neighbourhood attractiveness can be explained by five domains of objective neighbourhood features (i.e. design, traffic safety, social safety, aesthetics, and destinations), and to what extent other factors may play a role. Unfavourable neighbourhood perceptions of low socioeconomic groups partly reflected their actual less aesthetic and less safe neighbourhoods, and partly their perceptions of low social neighbourhood cohesion and adverse psychosocial circumstances.

The role country of birth plays in receiving disability pensions in relation to patterns of health care utilisation and socioeconomic differences: a multilevel analysis of Malmo, Sweden

Background

People of low socioeconomic status have worse health and a higher probability of being granted a disability pension than people of high socioeconomic status. It is also known that public and private general physicians and public and private specialists have varying practices for issuing sick leave certificates (which, if longstanding, may become the basis of disability pensions). However, few studies have investigated the influence of a patient's country of birth in this context.

Methods

We used multilevel logistic regression analysis with individuals (first level) nested within countries of birth (second level). We analysed the entire population between the ages of 40 and 64 years (n = 80 212) in the city of Malmo, Sweden, in 2003, and identified 73% of that population who had visited a physician at least once during that year. We studied the associations between individuals and country of birth socioeconomic characteristics, as well as individual utilisation of different kinds of physicians in relation to having been granted a disability pension.

Results

Living alone (OR_women = 1.72, 95% CI: 1.62–1.82; OR_men = 2.64, 95% CI: 2.46–2.83) and having limited educational achievement (OR_women = 2.14, 95% CI: 2.00–2.29; OR_men = 2.12, 95% CI: 1.98–2.28) were positively associated with having a disability pension. Utilisation of public specialists was associated with a higher probability (OR_women = 2.11, 95% CI: 1.98–2.25; OR_men = 2.16, 95% CI: 2.01–2.32) and utilisation of private GPs with a lower probability (OR_men = 0.76, 95% CI: 0.69–0.83) of having a disability pension. However, these associations differed by countries of birth. Over and above individual socioeconomic status, men from middle income countries had a higher probability of having a disability pension (OR_men = 1.61, 95% CI: 1.06–2.44).

Conclusion

The country of one's birth appears to play a significant role in understanding how individual socioeconomic differences bear on the likelihood of receiving a disability pension and on associated patterns of health care utilisation.