Keep working and stay healthier, scientists say

IS RETIREMENT hazardous to your health? It’s an intriguing question in light of a new study which has found that senior citizens who work are in better health than their counterparts who don’t.

Researchers from the University of Miami and their colleagues examined data from more than 83,000 Americans who took part in the National Health Interview Survey between 1997 and 2011. All of them were at least 65 years old when they were interviewed, and 13 per cent were still working part-time or fulltime. Most of these workers – 61 per cent – held white-collar positions.

Compared to people with white-collar jobs, those who were unemployed or retired were 2.75 times more likely to report their health as ‘‘poor’’ or ‘‘fair’’. People with blue-collar and service industry jobs or who worked on farms rated their health as about the same as their white-collar peers.

The survey also rated health using a measure called the Health and Activities Limitation Index, which includes factors like whether people need help taking care of themselves or have limitations in the kind of work they can do.

The researchers found that unemployed and retired senior citizens were nearly six times more likely than the white-collar workers to have a poor score. Again, other types of workers scored about the same as white-collar workers.

‘‘Being unemployed/retired was associated with the greatest risk of poor health across all health status measures, even after controlling for smoking status, obesity, and other predictors of health,’’ the study concluded.