Objectives: The incidence and the duration of sick leave were studied among immigrants and the native-born population in Spain. Methods: This observational follow-up study included 1427 immigrants and 2793 Spanish natives treated at five primary care centers in Lleida in 2005 and followed for 6 months. The sick leave causes were coded according to the International Classification of Diseases (10th revision). Multivariate Poisson regressions estimated the rate ratio (RR) for sick leave adjusted for age, and linear regressions evaluated the effect of age, gender, and region of origin on the total number of sick-leave days. Results: Altogether 19.5% of the natives and 12.7% of the immigrants had at least one sick-leave episode. The incidence of new episodes per 100 person-years was lower for the immigrants than for the natives (32.5 versus 43.3 for the men and 18.6 versus 35.6 for the women, respectively). The mean duration of sick leave in the 6-month period was 19.4 (SD 29.4) days for the immigrants and 33.5 (SD 39.2) days for the natives. For the men, the risk of sick leave was greater for the natives than for the immigrants (adjusted RR 1.70, 95% confidence interval 1.43-2.02). After adjustment for age, the duration of sick leave for the native workers was 1.5 times greater than for the immigrants. Conclusions: Even though sick leave was less frequent among the immigrants than among the natives and the immigrant sick-leave periods were of shorter duration, the two study populations did not show differences in the causes of disability.

Socioeconomic inequality Job satisfaction Migrant worker Population dynamics occupational health Absenteeism Immigration Sickness absence

Sick Leave Catalonia immigrant Eurasia South and Central America Europe, Eastern Africa south of the Sahara regression analysis Latin America Europe race difference Population Dynamics sex ratio Continental Population Groups occupational disease human Follow-Up Studies middle aged follow up immigration statistics sex difference controlled study priority journal Eastern Europe Job Satisfaction ethnology disease duration Young Adult migrant worker Humans Adolescent male Emigrants and Immigrants Spain female occupational exposure Multivariate Analysis Lerida [Catalonia] observational study population research race Article Southern Europe major clinical study absenteeism adult migration Sex Distribution disability occupational health primary health care medical leave