http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/health/09sick.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
May 9, 2009
Unemployment May Be Hazardous to Your Health
By RONI CARYN RABIN
Even as the U.S. Labor Department released figures showing that the economy lost more than half a million jobs in April, researchers on Friday made public a large study with an unsettling finding: Losing your job may make you sick.
A researcher at the Harvard School of Public analyzed detailed employment and health data from 8,125 individuals surveyed in 1999, 2001 and 2003 by the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics.
Workers who lost a job through no fault of their own, she found, were twice as likely to report developing a new ailment like high blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease over the next year and a half, compared to people who were continuously employed.
Interestingly, the risk was just as high for those who found new jobs quickly as it was for those who remained unemployed.
Though it’s long been known that poor health and unemployment often go together, questions have lingered about whether unemployment triggers illness, or whether people in ill health are more likely to leave a job, be fired or laid off.
In an attempt to sort out this chicken-or-egg problem, the new study looked specifically at people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own — for example, because of a plant or business closure.
“I was looking at situations in which people lost their job for reasons that...shouldn’t have had anything to do with their health,” said author Kate W. Strully, an assistant professor of sociology at State University of New York in Albany, who did the research as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health. “What happens isn’t reflecting a prior condition.”
Only 6 percent of people with steady jobs developed a new health condition during each survey period of about a year and a half, compared with 10 percent of those who had lost a job during the same period. It didn’t matter whether the laid off workers had found new employment; they still had a one in 10 chance of developing a new health condition, Dr. Strully found.
David Williams, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health who was not involved in the research, said the study is a reminder that job loss and other life stressors have a tremendous impact on both mental and physical health and contribute to the development of chronic conditions.
"We know that stress affects health," said Dr. Williams, formerly director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America. "It causes changes in physiological function in multiple ways, and it can lead to alterations in health behavior. People no longer exercise, they eat more, they drink more. People who smoke, smoke more on high stress days.”
“There is a lot of focus on the economic downturn, but there is not much attention being paid to the health consequences of the downturn,” he added. “This study shows that it does not take a long sustained period of unemployment to see health effects.”
May 9, 2009
Unemployment May Be Hazardous to Your Health
By RONI CARYN RABIN
Even as the U.S. Labor Department released figures showing that the economy lost more than half a million jobs in April, researchers on Friday made public a large study with an unsettling finding: Losing your job may make you sick.
A researcher at the Harvard School of Public analyzed detailed employment and health data from 8,125 individuals surveyed in 1999, 2001 and 2003 by the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics.
Workers who lost a job through no fault of their own, she found, were twice as likely to report developing a new ailment like high blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease over the next year and a half, compared to people who were continuously employed.
Interestingly, the risk was just as high for those who found new jobs quickly as it was for those who remained unemployed.
Though it’s long been known that poor health and unemployment often go together, questions have lingered about whether unemployment triggers illness, or whether people in ill health are more likely to leave a job, be fired or laid off.
In an attempt to sort out this chicken-or-egg problem, the new study looked specifically at people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own — for example, because of a plant or business closure.
“I was looking at situations in which people lost their job for reasons that...shouldn’t have had anything to do with their health,” said author Kate W. Strully, an assistant professor of sociology at State University of New York in Albany, who did the research as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health. “What happens isn’t reflecting a prior condition.”
Only 6 percent of people with steady jobs developed a new health condition during each survey period of about a year and a half, compared with 10 percent of those who had lost a job during the same period. It didn’t matter whether the laid off workers had found new employment; they still had a one in 10 chance of developing a new health condition, Dr. Strully found.
David Williams, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health who was not involved in the research, said the study is a reminder that job loss and other life stressors have a tremendous impact on both mental and physical health and contribute to the development of chronic conditions.
"We know that stress affects health," said Dr. Williams, formerly director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America. "It causes changes in physiological function in multiple ways, and it can lead to alterations in health behavior. People no longer exercise, they eat more, they drink more. People who smoke, smoke more on high stress days.”
“There is a lot of focus on the economic downturn, but there is not much attention being paid to the health consequences of the downturn,” he added. “This study shows that it does not take a long sustained period of unemployment to see health effects.”
