Hartz IV recipients more frequently chronically ill

Unemployed more affected by chronic diseases

23/06/2012

Hartz IV recipients are more likely to be affected by chronic diseases and health disorders than people who are gainfully employed. This comes from the answer (17/9860) of a small request from the Alliance 90 / The Greens to the Federal Government. The Federal Government explained, the data come from analyzes of the patient data of the legal health insurance companies as well as from the representative „Health Surveys“ of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). Thus, unemployed are mainly affected by depression and sleep disorders, as it was said.

However, the Federal Government acknowledged in its answer that unemployed persons participate relatively less in primary-preventive seminars and courses of the health insurances than in the labor force. In addition, the Federal Ministry of Health would often initiatives and approaches „to strengthen health“ promote even with Hartz IV receivers. „These are rightly located at the Federal Center for Health Education, the social service providers and their associations.“ Further measures for the benefit of the health of the unemployed are therefore not necessary in the opinion of the black-yellow coalition.

Last year, the Federal Employment Agency explained that around 330,000 people in the Hartz IV relationship are considered permanently ill and therefore have only limited access to the labor market. The IGES Institute formulated in a study report on „Illness and Hartz IV“ that „Unemployment to stress of its own kind“ lead. Accordingly, disproportionately many unemployed people suffer from mental illness. Due to an inadequate diet, many suffer from metabolic diseases such as type II diabetes. (Bs)

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Picture: Gerd Altmann