Illness, disease, and sickness absence: an empirical test of differences between concepts of ill health

Abstract

The discrepancies between the concepts imply that you have to be very careful when using public health data to illustrate different aspects of morbidity. The comparatively low degree of overlap between them shows that they represent different realities. There is a need to do further empirical research about how different aspects of morbidity are interrelated. Their lack of interrelation seems to be an important research area worth developing further.