Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2008, 216(2)
Lower Mortality in Male Physicians of Chinese Medicine than Male Population in Taiwan
SHU-HUI LIU,1 CHAO-SHUN WU,1 YUN-LIAN LIN,2 YU-CHEN HSIAO,3 CHUN-YUH YANG,4 FUNG-CHANG SUNG,5 CHUNG-YI LI6 and TRONG-NENG WU1,5
1Institute of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, National Yang Ming University, Taiwan
2National Research Institute of Chinese Medicine, Ministry of Education, Taiwan
3Department of Industrial Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
4Institute of Public Health, Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan
5Department of Public Health and Institute of Environmental Health, China Medical University and Hospital, Taiwan
6Department of Health Care Management, National Taipei College of Nursing, Taipei, Taiwan
Studies on the physicians' health have paid less attention on the Chinese medicine than on the western medicine professionals. Like western medicine professionals, Chinese medicine physicians' health condition is critical to the quality of care and patients' safety. They also cared a large number of patients in many Asia societies. However, no data have been reported regarding the health problems associated with Chinese medicine physicians. The aim of this study was to examine the mortality patterns of a cohort consisting of 6109 male physicians of Chinese medicine who were followed from 1991 through 2003 in Taiwan. The analyses of female subjects were not included due to small sample size. We calculated the overall and cause-specific standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) and life expectancy of the study cohort using the death rates of some 11 millions of Taiwanese male population as reference. We found out that physicians of Chinese medicine experienced significantly lower death rate of mortality from all causes (SMR = 0.63, 95% > CI: 0.57, 0.69), from malignant neoplasms (SMR = 0.69, 95% CI: 0.57, 0.82) and from cerebrovascular disease (SMR = 0.53, 95% CI: 0.38, 0.72). Additionally, they have longer life expectancy (ranged from 3 years to approximately 15 years). Our study is crucial to evaluate potential health risks associated with Chinese medicine physicians. Although this study did not reveal elevated death rate among Chinese medicine physicians, researchers and policy makers should not overlook other heath problems that Chinese medicine physicians might have experienced.
keywords —— Chinese medicine Physicians; standardized mortality ratio; life expectancy; mortality rate; occupational epidemiology.
© 2008 Tohoku University Medical Press
===============================
Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2008, 216, 187-194
Correspondence: Trong-Neng Wu, PhD, Professor and Vice President Institute of Environmental Health, College of Public Health, China Medical University and Hospital, 91 Hseuh-Shih Road, Taichung 404, Taiwan.
e-mail: tnwu@mail.cmu.edu.tw