Table 3.

Odds Ratios and 95% confidence intervals for the associations between single transitions in employment status and persistence of unemployment and poor general health, obesity and smoking^a

	Poor general health	Obesity	Smoking
Single transitions in employment statusb
Employed-employed	1.00 (Reference)	1.00 (Reference)	1.00 (Reference)
Unemployed-employed	1.62 (1.30,2.01)*	1.31 (1.01,1.69)*	1.39 (1.16,1.67)*
Employed-unemployed	1.93 (1.60,2.31)*	1.08 (0.84,1.37)	1.77 (1.51,2.07)*
Unemployed-unemployed	5.14 (4.68,5.65)*	1.49 (1.32,1.68)*	1.50 (1.37,1.65)*
P-trend	< 0.001	< 0.001	< 0.001
Persistence of unemployment in the past 5 yearscd
0 (=persistently employed)	1.00 (Reference)	1.00 (Reference)	1.00 (Reference)
1	1.20 (0.98,1.47)	1.31 (1.05,1.64)*	1.82 (1.55,2.14)*
2	1.65 (1.27,2.13)*	1.45 (1.07,1.96)*	1.52 (1.22,1.91)*
3	2.00 (1.46,2.76)*	1.31 (0.88,1.95)	1.63 (1.21,2.18)*
4	3.28 (2.27,4.76)*	1.42 (0.88,2.30)	1.90 (1.33,2.70)*
5 (=persistently unemployed)	6.11 (4.60,8.11)*	2.03 (1.46,2.82)	1.33 (1.04,1.71)*
P-trend	< 0.001	< 0.001	0.05

^aAdjusted sex, age, education, unemployment in the region and household position

^bSingle transitions in employment status relate to the work transitions in the previous 2 years. ^c Persistence in unemployment relates to the number of years individuals were unemployed in the previous 5 years. ^d To account for the last registered work status in the analysis of persistence of unemployment, we additionally adjusted for individual’s employment status (i.e. employed or unemployed) at the time of the health survey

*p ≤ 0.05