Occupational activity and health of Warsaw inhabitants. Part I. Unemployment: a preliminary analysis

The health deterioration of the unemployed is the serious challenge for the public health, especially of that health promotion programs for this group were not always effective.

The aim of the papers is to recognise initially the health effects of unemployment among Warsaw inhabitants in order to formulate recommendations for future more comprehensive research.

Out of the respondents who joint the program of social participation in health reforms, 23 the unemployed and 172 employed persons were included to the study. The eight indicators of health status and eight components of health security were assumed.

As regards health status, compared to employed persons, relatively more of the unemployed perceived their health, physical and mental well-being as worse, they more frequently remained at home due to illness and were admitted to hospital, but relatively fewer of them visited physicians. As regards health security, relatively more the unemployed assessed their medical expenses as very high, used only public health care and well understood the information received from family doctor, but relatively fewer of them experiences difficulties in getting to physicians. The future retirement system they perceived dramatically poorly. However, not all visible differences reached the level of statistical significance.

Despite the limitation of our findings due to a preliminary nature of the study, they confirmed unquestionable relationship between unemployment and health deterioration. The recommendations for future more extensive research were presented in detail.