Correlation between relative rates of hospital treatment or death due to ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and of IHD-related medication among socio-occupational and economic activities groups in Denmark, 1996–2005

• Authors: Harald Hannerz , Kim Dalhoff , Hermann Burr , Ute Latza

Abstracts

EN

Objective: The aim of the present work was to establish whether or not prescribed medication is a usable risk indicator for work‑related ischaemic heart disease (IHD), in Denmark. Material and Methods: Weighted Spearman rank correlation coefficients (rho) were used to evaluate the agreement between Standardised Hazard Ratios (SHR) for hospital treatment or death due to IHD and SHR for purchase of prescriptions for medicine that may prevent IHD from (re)occurring, among socio-occupational and economic activities groups in Denmark. The SHR were based on a 10-year prospective follow-up of 2 million people in Danish national registers 1996–2005. Results: We found approximately 7 times more cases of medicine usage (N = 411 651) than we did for hospital treatment or death (N = 55 684). The correlations between the 2 types of SHR were strong (rho = 0.94 for the socio-occupational groups; rho = 0.74 for the economic activities groups). We observed, however, one markedly contradictive result; the industrial group entitled ‘general practitioner, dentists etc.’ was associated both with significantly high rates of medicine usage (SHR = 1.15, 95% CI: 1.12–1.19) and significantly low rates of hospital treatment or death due to IHD (SHR = 0.80, 95% CI: 0.71–0.91). Conclusion: Apart from a few caveats, the strong correlations obtained in the present study signify that purchase of a prescription for IHD-related medication is a usable risk indicator for IHD in the working population of Denmark. The usage of medicine data in addition to or instead of the use of death or hospital data in epidemiological studies on work-related IHD risk will bring about a tremendous increase in statistical power.

Keywords

EN

pccupational epidemiology; heart therapeutic drugs; anti-hypertensive drugs; lipid modifying agents

• Publisher: Instytut Medycyny Pracy im. prof. dra Jerzego Nofera w Łodzi
• Journal: International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 536-546

Dates

published

2014

Contributors

author

Harald Hannerz

• Department of Occupational Health, National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark

author

Kim Dalhoff

• Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark

author

Hermann Burr

• Unit 3.1 Prevention of Work-related Diseases, The Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Berlin, Germany

author

Ute Latza

• Unit 3.1 Prevention of Work-related Diseases, The Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Berlin, Germany

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/s13382-014-0276-6

Biblioteka Nauki

2178871