Misery loves company? A meta-regression examining aggregate unemployment rates and the unemployment-mortality association

Annals of Epidemiology
David J RoelfsJoseph E Schwartz

Abstract

Individual-level unemployment has been consistently linked to poor health and higher mortality, but some scholars have suggested that the negative effect of job loss may be lower during times and in places where aggregate unemployment rates are high. We review three logics associated with this moderation hypothesis: health selection, social isolation, and unemployment stigma. We then test whether aggregate unemployment rates moderate the individual-level association between unemployment and all-cause mortality. We use six meta-regression models (each using a different measure of the aggregate unemployment rate) based on 62 relative all-cause mortality risk estimates from 36 studies (from 15 nations). We find that the magnitude of the individual-level unemployment-mortality association is approximately the same during periods of high and low aggregate-level unemployment. Model coefficients (exponentiated) were 1.01 for the crude unemployment rate (P = .27), 0.94 for the change in unemployment rate from the previous year (P = .46), 1.01 for the deviation of the unemployment rate from the 5-year running average (P = .87), 1.01 for the deviation of the unemployment rate from the 10-year running average (P = .73), 1.01 for the devia...Continue Reading

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Citations

Mar 29, 2016·Psychoneuroendocrinology·Stephen GallagherAilish Hannigan
May 9, 2019·American Journal of Public Health·Gerry McCartneyRobert McMaster
Feb 19, 2021·American Journal of Public Health·Ellicott C MatthaySandro Galea

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