Older Cancer Survivors Pull Their Weight in Workplace

According to a new medical study, "cancer survivors between 55 and 65 years old who remain cancer-free for two to six years after diagnosis are as likely to be working as their peers who have not had cancer." However, those people recently diagnosed with new cancers are less likely to be working.

As published by Health Services Research, the article--"Long-Term Effects of Cancer Survivorship on the Employment of Older Workers"--by Pamela Farley Short, Joseph J. Vasey, and John R. Moran concludes that "survivors with recurrences or second primary tumors may particularly benefit from employment support services and workplace accommodation. Reassuringly, any long-term effects on the employment of cancer-free survivors are fairly small."

In the cancer-free group, 63.4% of men and 51% of women in the surveyed age group were working full-time; among the cancer survivors who had no new cancers, 55.8% of men and 50.9% of women were working full-time. Short, director, Center for Health Care and Policy Research, and professor of health policy and administration and demography at Penn State, said that "What this is saying is that there is every reason to believe that survivors will continue to be productive workers and will stick with their employer."

Source: Penn State News Release (June 27, 2007)