IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v75y2012i9p1589-1594.html

Do workers underreport morbidity? The accuracy of self-reports of chronic conditions

Author

Listed:
  • Datta Gupta, Nabanita
  • Jürges, Hendrik

Abstract

We use matched Danish health survey and register data to investigate discrepancies between register-based diagnoses and self-reported morbidity. We hypothesize that false negatives (medical diagnoses existing in the register but not reported in the survey) arise partly because individuals fear career repercussions of being discovered suffering a chronic or severe illness that potentially lowers productivity. We find evidence of substantial underreporting, which is indeed systematically higher for individuals in the labor market.

Suggested Citation

  • Datta Gupta, Nabanita & Jürges, Hendrik, 2012. "Do workers underreport morbidity? The accuracy of self-reports of chronic conditions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(9), pages 1589-1594.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:9:p:1589-1594
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.07.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953612005540
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.07.013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arie Kapteyn & James P. Smith & Arthur van Soest, 2009. "Work Disability, Work, and Justification Bias in Europe and the U.S," Working Papers wp207, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    2. Hamermesh Daniel S. & Slemrod Joel B, 2008. "The Economics of Workaholism: We Should Not Have Worked on This Paper," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-30, January.
    3. Arie Kapteyn & James P. Smith & Arthur van Soest, 2009. "Work Disability, Work, and Justification Bias in Europe and the U.S," NBER Working Papers 15245, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Butler, J S, 1987. "Measurement Error in Self-reported Health Variables," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(4), pages 644-650, November.
    5. Gunasekara, Fiona Imlach & Carter, Kristie & Blakely, Tony, 2012. "Comparing self-rated health and self-assessed change in health in a longitudinal survey: Which is more valid?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(7), pages 1117-1124.
    6. John Bound, 1991. "Self-Reported Versus Objective Measures of Health in Retirement Models," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(1), pages 106-138.
    7. Mackenbach, J.P. & Looman, C.W.N. & Van Der Meer, J.B.W., 1996. "Differences in the misreporting of chronic conditions, by level of education: The effect on inequalities in prevalence rates," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 86(5), pages 706-711.
    8. Michael Baker & Mark Stabile & Catherine Deri, 2004. "What Do Self-Reported, Objective, Measures of Health Measure?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(4).
    9. Currie, Janet & Madrian, Brigitte C., 1999. "Health, health insurance and the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 50, pages 3309-3416, Elsevier.
    10. Van Ryn, M. & Burgess, D. & Malat, J. & Griffin, J., 2006. "Physicians' perceptions of patients' social and behavioral characteristics and race disparities in treatment recommendations for men with coronary artery disease," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 96(2), pages 351-357.
    11. Munir, F. & Leka, S. & Griffiths, A., 2005. "Dealing with self-management of chronic illness at work: predictors for self-disclosure," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(6), pages 1397-1407, March.
    12. Dew, Kevin & Keefe, Vera & Small, Keitha, 2005. "'Choosing' to work when sick: workplace presenteeism," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(10), pages 2273-2282, May.
    13. Becker, Gary S & Murphy, Kevin M, 1988. "A Theory of Rational Addiction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(4), pages 675-700, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yulia Raskina & Olga Podkorytova & Ruslan Kuchakov, 2022. "Health determinants and the reporting heterogeneity bias in Russia: Anchoring vignettes approach," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 66, pages 118-143.
    2. Nguyen, Giang & Nguyen, Trung Thanh, 2020. "Exposure to weather shocks: A comparison between self-reported record and extreme weather data," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 117-138.
    3. Black, Nicole & Johnston, David W. & Suziedelyte, Agne, 2017. "Justification bias in self-reported disability: New evidence from panel data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 124-134.
    4. Bauer, Ann Barbara & Eichenberger, Reiner, 2021. "Worsening workers' health by lowering retirement age: The malign consequences of a benign reform," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 18(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Johnston, David W. & Propper, Carol & Shields, Michael A., 2009. "Comparing subjective and objective measures of health: Evidence from hypertension for the income/health gradient," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 540-552, May.
    2. William N. Evans & Craig L. Garthwaite, 2014. "Giving Mom a Break: The Impact of Higher EITC Payments on Maternal Health," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 258-290, May.
    3. Chen, Linkun & Clarke, Philip M. & Petrie, Dennis J. & Staub, Kevin E., 2021. "The effects of self-assessed health: Dealing with and understanding misclassification bias," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    4. Roozbei Hosseini & Karen Kopecky & Kai Zhao, 2022. "The Evolution of Health over the Life Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 237-263, July.
    5. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3309-3416 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Arie Kapteyn & James P. Smith & Arthur VanSoest, 2005. "Vignettes and Self Reported Work Disability," Labor and Demography 0511005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Arie Kapteyn & James P. Smith & Arthur Van Soest, 2004. "Self-reported Work Disability in the US and The Netherlands," Working Papers WR-206, RAND Corporation.
    8. Teresa Bago d'Uva & Maarten Lindeboom & Owen O'Donnell & Eddy van Doorslaer, 2011. "Education‐related inequity in healthcare with heterogeneous reporting of health," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 174(3), pages 639-664, July.
    9. Jones, M.A. & Rice, N. & Zantomio, F., 2016. "Acute health shocks and labour market outcomes," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 16/04, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    10. Torben Heien Nielsen, 2016. "The Relationship Between Self‐Rated Health and Hospital Records," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 497-512, April.
    11. David Johnston & Carol Propper & Stephen Pudney & Michael Shields, 2014. "Child Mental Health And Educational Attainment: Multiple Observers And The Measurement Error Problem," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(6), pages 880-900, September.
    12. Richard Blundell & Jack Britton & Monica Costa Dias & Eric French, 2023. "The Impact of Health on Labor Supply near Retirement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(1), pages 282-334.
    13. Dwayne Benjamin & Loren Brandt & Jia-Zhueng Fan, 2003. "Ceaseless Toil? Health and Labor Supply of the Elderly in Rural China," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2003-579, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    14. Michele J. Siegel, 2006. "Measuring the effect of husband's health on wife's labor supply," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(6), pages 579-601, June.
    15. Arie Kapteyn & James P. Smith & Arthur Van Soest, 2004. "Self-reported Work Disability in the US and The Netherlands," Working Papers 206, RAND Corporation.
    16. Doreen Wing Han Au & Thomas F. Crossley & Martin Schellhorn, 2005. "The effect of health changes and long‐term health on the work activity of older Canadians," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(10), pages 999-1018, October.
    17. Jones, Andrew M. & Rice, Nigel & Zantomio, Francesca, 2020. "Acute health shocks and labour market outcomes: Evidence from the post crash era," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    18. Eric French & John Bailey Jones, 2017. "Health, Health Insurance, and Retirement: A Survey," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 9(1), pages 383-409, September.
    19. Ilmakunnas, Pekka & Ilmakunnas, Seija, 2018. "Health and retirement age: Comparison of expectations and actual retirement," MPRA Paper 102618, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Brady P. Horn & Johanna Catherine Maclean & Michael R. Strain, 2017. "Do Minimum Wage Increases Influence Worker Health?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1986-2007, October.
    21. Manoj K Pandey, 2009. "Labor Force Participation among Indian Elderly: Does Health Matter?," Working Papers id:1987, eSocialSciences.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:9:p:1589-1594. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.