Teachers’ Health: How General, Mental and Functional Health Indicators Compare to Other Employees? A Large French Population-Based Study

Mélèa Saïd, Sofia Temam, Stephanie Alexander, Nathalie Billaudeau, Marie Zins, Sofiane Kab and Marie-Noël Vercambre ()
Additional contact information
Mélèa Saïd: MGEN Foundation for Public Health, 3 Square Max-Hymans, CEDEX 15, 75748 Paris, France
Sofia Temam: MGEN Foundation for Public Health, 3 Square Max-Hymans, CEDEX 15, 75748 Paris, France
Stephanie Alexander: MGEN Foundation for Public Health, 3 Square Max-Hymans, CEDEX 15, 75748 Paris, France
Nathalie Billaudeau: MGEN Foundation for Public Health, 3 Square Max-Hymans, CEDEX 15, 75748 Paris, France
Marie Zins: INSERM UMS 011, 94807 Villejuif, France
Sofiane Kab: INSERM UMS 011, 94807 Villejuif, France
Marie-Noël Vercambre: MGEN Foundation for Public Health, 3 Square Max-Hymans, CEDEX 15, 75748 Paris, France

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 18, 1-15

Abstract: Teachers’ health is a key factor of any successful education system, but available data are conflicting. To evaluate to what extent teachers’ health could be at risk, we used pre-pandemic data from the CONSTANCES population-based French cohort (inclusion phase: 2012–2019) and compared teachers (n = 12,839) included in the cohort with a random subsample selected among all other employees (n = 32,837) on four self-reported health indicators: perceived general health, depressive symptoms (CES-D scale), functional limitations in the last six months, and persistent neck/back troubles (Nordic questionnaire). We further restricted our comparison group to the State employees (n = 3583), who share more occupational similarities with teachers. Lastly, we focused on teachers and evaluated how their health status might differ across teaching levels (primary, secondary, and higher education). As compared to non-teacher employees, and even after adjusting for important demographic, socioeconomic, lifestyle, and occupational confounders, teachers were less likely to report bad perceived health and depressive symptoms but were more likely to present functional limitations. Trends were similar in the analyses restricted to State employees. Within the teaching population, secondary school teachers were more likely to report depressive symptoms but less frequently declared persistent neck/back troubles than primary school teachers. Our descriptive cross-sectional study based on a probability sampling procedure (secondary use of CONSTANCES inclusion data) did not support the idea that teachers’ health in France was particularly at risk in the pre-pandemic period. Both cross-cultural and longitudinal studies are needed to further gain information on the topic of teachers’ health around the world and to monitor its evolution over time, particularly during crises impacting the education system such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: teachers; employees; mental health; functional health; MSD; occupational health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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