Healthy behaviour and good working conditions as adaptation factors for better health and maintaining employment in workers in low SEP with a chronic disease

Workers in low socio-economic position (SEP) with a chronic disease have often poor health and labour market attachment. Unhealthy behaviour and strenuous work conditions play an important role in health inequalities. The combination of poor health behaviour and poor work conditions may exacerbate their impact on perceived health and work participation beyond the sum of their individual effects.

To develop tailored evidence-based interventions for workers with a chronic disease, it is important to understand whether health behaviour and working conditions have different effects on perceived health and maintaining paid work across chronic diseases. In this project the researchers will disentangle the interplay between healthy behaviour, work conditions, perceived health and maintaining employment among workers with highly prevalent and disabling chronic diseases. This study will allow well-informed recommendations regarding integrated intervention approaches that can contribute to better health and sustained paid employment among workers with a chronic disease.