Reading and writing difficulties in adolescence and later risk of welfare dependence. A ten year follow-up, the HUNT Study, Norway

摘要

Background: Welfare dependence and low work participation among young people have raised concern in manyEuropean countries. Reading and writing difficulties (RWD) might make young people vulnerable to workintegration problems and welfare dependence through negative influences on education and health. Our mainobjective of this study was to examine if RWD in adolescence affected the risk of welfare dependence in youngadulthood.Methods: Baseline information on self-reported RWD, health and family was obtained for 8950 school-attendingadolescents in Nord-Trøndelag County, Norway, participating in the Young-HUNT1 survey, 1995-97. All individualswere linked to biological parents to identify siblings and parental education from national registers. Welfaredependence was assessed by the reception of social benefits (medical and economic) from the national socialinsurance database (1998-2007). Only long-term benefits (> 180 days) were included.Results: The adolescents who reported RWD at baseline were more likely to receive medical or social benefitsduring follow-up compared with those who did not report RWD. In girls with RWD, the adjusted 5-year risk (at age24 to 28) for receiving medical benefits was 0.20 (95% confidence interval 0.14-0.26), compared with 0.11 (0.09-0.12) in girls without RWD. In boys the corresponding risks were 0.13 (0.09-0.17) and 0.08 (0.07-0.09).Conclusions: The associations between RWD in adolescence and welfare dependence later in life suggest thatincreased attention should be paid to these problems when discussing the public health aspects of workintegration, since there might be a potential for prevention.