Promoting Labour market participation of the chronically ill - a comparative study

Providing knowledge on how to prolong and increase labour market participation of the chronically ill should be of great interest as even small increases may represent substantial individual life quality improvements and societal cost reductions. Expecting higher average age of retirement in the general population in years to come, addressing the situation for the chronically ill is even more pressing, since prevalence of chronic illnesses increase with age. Structural, organizational and economic factors can cause unwarranted variation in quality, quantity and distribution of health, labour and welfare services. In this project we study whether variations in provision of labour, welfare and health services across municipalities influence the labour market participation of the chronically ill. No final results from the study are available yet.

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We ask if and to what extent variations in provision of labour, welfare and health (LW&H) services locally influences the labour market participation of the chronically ill. Patient groups of particular interest in this project are those with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), asthma, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, arthritis and rheumatism. Those groups are chosen as they lend themselves well for scrutinizing the interface between health services - including the role of the Regular General Practitioner Scheme - and welfare and labour market service. We include the voice and knowledge of the chronically ill themselves through comprehensive collaboration with the Norwegian Federation of Organisations of Disabled People (FFO), a main user organisation for people with chronic diseases. In addition, we draw on VIVE`s long standing collaboration with Danish user organizations. We address crosscutting themes of the present call in a comparative perspective (N and DK), in particular structural, organizational and economic factors that impede and promote integrated, coherent pathways for the chronically ill. Moreover, structural, organizational and economic factors can cause unwarranted variation in quality, quantity and distribution of health, labour and welfare services across municipalities with significant consequences for the chronically ills´ labour market opportunities, issues we also address. We tackle the above issues by applying a mixed method approach combining quantitative (register and survey) and qualitative (interviews and document analysis) data. A key outcome of our study will be policy relevant knowledge on good practice municipalities and the identification of aspects of LW&H services explaining improved labour market participation of the chronically ill.