Table 1.

A comparison of Employment and Socio-demographic characteristics of persons in the United States with and without a cancer diagnosis. National Health Interview Survey, 1997–2009¹

	Persons with Cancer diagnosis (n=22,952)		Persons without cancer (n=358,495)
Socio-demographics	Employed (n=7,424)	Unemployed (n=15,528)	Employed (n=218,237)	Unemployed (n=140,258)
Age	n [%]	n [%]	n [%]	n [%]
18–39	1,549 [20.9]	828 [5.3]	108,834 [49.9]	41,906 [29.9 ]
40–64	4,720 [63.6]	3,926 [25.3]	102,150 [46.8]	45,764 [32.6]
≥ 65	1, 155 [15.5]	10,774 [69.4]	7,253 [3.3]	52,588 [37.5]
Gender
Male	2,494 [33.6]	5,722 [36.8]	109,352 [50.1]	48,714 [34.7]
Female	4,930 [66.4]	9,806 [63.2]	108,885 [49.9]	91,544 [65.3]
Race
White	6,542 [88.1]	13,571 [87.4]	171,908 [78.7]	107,983[77.0]
Black	627 [8.5 ]	1,535 [9.9]	31,575 [14.5]	23,233 [16.6]
Other	255 [3.4]	422 [2.7]	14,754 [6.8]	9,042 [6.4]
Ethnicity
Non-Hispanic	6,879 [92.7]	14,454 [93.1]	179,121[82.1]	115,245[82.2]
Hispanic	545 [7.3]	1074 [6.9]	39,116 [17	25,013 [17.8]
Education
<12 years	4,620 [62.5]	6,157 [40.0]	128,475 [59.2]	54,697 [39.7]
12 years	2,063 [27.9]	4,856 [31.6]	59,402 [27.4]	42,013 [30.5]
>12 years	714 [9.6]	4,373 [28.4]	29,019 [13.4]	41119 [29.8]
Health Insurance
Uninsured	795 [10.7]	708 [4.6]	39,680 [21.8]	23,010 [16.5]
Insured	6,623 [89.3]	14,797 [95.4]	178,018 [78.2]	116,599[83.5]
Occupation
White collar	5,007 [67.9]	†	126,064 [58.5]	†
Blue collar	1,160 [15.7]	†	34,907 [16.2]	†
Farm	102 [1.4]	†	4,153 [1.9]	†
Service	1,107 [15.0]	†	50,435 [23.4]	†
Health Status
Good-excellent	6,327 [85.4]	9,413 [60.8]	205,899 [94.0]	107,057[76.4]
Poor-fair	1,084 [14.6]	6,081 [39.2]	12,253 [6.0]	33,013 [23.6]
≥ 2 Functional limitations
Yes	2,084 [28.1]	9,555 [61.5]	7,101 [3.3]	35,337 [25.2]
No	5,340 [71.9]	5,973 [38.5]	211,136 [96.7 ]	104,921[74.8]
≥ 2 Chronic conditions 2
Yes	435 [5.9]	2,365 [15.2]	4,861 [2.2]	13,603 [9.7]
No	6,989 [94.1]	13,163 [84.8]	213,376 [97.8]	126,655[90.3]
Number of days in bed/yr
1 week or less	6,374 [88.3]	11,537 [76.6]	204,807 [95.4]	116,791[85.3]
>1week	939 [11.7]	3,355[23.4]	9,912 [4.6]	20,151 [14.7]

¹Column percentage illustrated

²All chronic conditions excluding cancer

^†Data not applicable