Abstract
The aim of the study was to compare the rates of mortality among disability pensioners to the rates of mortality in the general population.
The causes considered are musculoskeletal- and psychiatric disorders and a group of disability pensioners disabled due to other causes. Stratified analyses are being done for gender and causes of disability. Fitting of a simple Gompertz-distribution and Poisson-regression are the methods used for these purposes. The data used for the analyses are given by Statistics Norway and the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service. It covers the total number of disability pensioners and the total population of Norway in the period between 1992 and 2006.
The results show significantly higher rates of mortality among the disability pensioners than for the general population. The excess risk among disability pensioners is strongly age related. It is also shown that the risk of dying is significantly smaller for some age-groups of those disabled due to musculoskeletal disorders, than for the population in general.