Can Labor Market Policies Reduce Deaths of Despair?
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Dow WH
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8403492 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Recent research has implicated economic insecurity in increasing midlife death rates and "deaths of despair," including suicide, chronic liver disease, and drug and alcohol poisoning. In this ecological longitudinal study, we evaluated the association between changes in economic insecurity and increases in deaths of despair and midlife all-cause mortality in US counties during 2000-2015. We extended a previously developed measure of economic insecurity using indicators from the Census and Federal Reserve Bank in US counties for the years 2000 and 2010. Linear regression models were used to estimate the association of change in economic insecurity with change in death rates through 2015. Counties experiencing elevated economic insecurity in either 2000 or 2010 had higher rates of deaths of despair and all-cause midlife mortality at baseline but similar rates of increase in deaths of despair from 2001 to 2015 compared with counties with stable low economic insecurity. Counties in the highest tertile of economic insecurity in 2000 and 2010 had 41% (95% confidence interval: 1.36, 1.47) higher midlife mortality rates at baseline and a rate of increase of 2% more per 5-year period (95% confidence interval: 1.00, 1.03) than counties with stable low economic insecurity. Economic insecurity may represent a population-level driver of US death trends.
| S-EPMC7212405 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectivesWe investigate associations between adverse employment histories over an extended time period and health functioning in later life, and explore whether national labor market policies moderate the association.MethodsWe use harmonized life-history data from the Gateway to Global Aging Data on two European studies (SHARE and ELSA) linked to health beyond age 50 (men = 11,621; women = 10,999). Adverse employment histories consist of precarious, discontinued, and disadvantaged careers between age 25 and 50, and we use depressive symptoms, grip strength, and verbal memory as outcomes.ResultsAdverse employment histories between age 25 and 50 are associated with poor health functioning later in life, particularly repeated periods of unemployment, involuntary job losses, weak labor market ties, and disadvantaged occupational positions. Associations remain consistent after adjusting for age, partnership history, education and employment situation, and after excluding those with poor health prior to or during working life. We find no variations of the associations by national labor market policies.DiscussionOur study calls for increased intervention efforts to improve working conditions at early career stages. Despite the importance in shaping employment histories, the role of national policies in modifying the impact of employment on health is less clear.
| S-EPMC8495751 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundA startling population health phenomenon has been unfolding since the turn of the 21st century. Whites in the United States, who customarily have the most favorable mortality profile of all racial groups, have experienced rising mortality rates, without a commensurate rise in other racial groups. The two leading hypotheses to date are that either contemporaneous economic conditions or longer-term (post-1970s) economic transformations have led to declining economic and social prospects of low-educated whites, culminating in "deaths of despair." We re-examine these hypotheses and investigate a third hypothesis: mortality increases are attributable to (false) perceptions of whites that they are losing social status.MethodsUsing administrative and survey data, we examined trends and correlations between race-, age- and, education-specific mortality and a range of economic and social indicators. We also conducted a county-level fixed effects model to determine whether changes in the Republican share of voters during presidential elections, as a marker of growing perceptions of social status threat, was associated with changes in working-age white mortality from 2000 to 2016, adjusting for demographic and economic covariates.FindingsRising white mortality is not restricted to the lowest education bracket and is occurring deeper into the educational distribution. Neither short-term nor long-term economic factors can themselves account for rising white mortality, because parallel trends (and more adverse levels) of these factors were being experienced by blacks, whose mortality rates are not rising. Instead, perceptions - misperceptions - of whites that their social status is being threatened by their declining economic circumstances seems best able to reconcile the observed population health patterns.ConclusionRising white mortality in the United States is not explained by traditional social and economic population health indicators, but instead by a perceived decline in relative group status on the part of whites - despite no actual loss in relative group position.
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Project description:A large literature points to the importance of prosociality for the well-being of societies and individuals. However, most of this work is based on observations from western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies, questioning the generalizability of these findings. Here we present a global investigation of the relation between prosociality and labor market success. Our analysis uses experimentally validated measures of prosociality and is based on about 80,000 individuals in 76 representative country samples. We show a sizable and robust positive relation between prosociality and labor market success around the world that does not systematically differ across continents or by countries' economic development. These findings generalize the positive relation between prosociality and labor market success to a wide geographical context.
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Project description:This paper develops a choice-theoretic equilibrium model of the labor market in the presence of a pandemic. It includes heterogeneity in productivity, age and the ability to work from home. Worker and firm behavior changes in the presence of the virus, which itself has equilibrium consequences for the infection rate. The model is calibrated to the UK and counterfactual lockdown measures are evaluated. We find a different response in both the evolution of the virus and the labor market with different lockdown policies. A laissez-faire approach results in lives lost and acts as negative shock to the economy. A lockdown policy, absent any other intervention, will reduce the lives lost but increase the economic burden. Consistent with recent evidence, we find that the economic costs from lockdown are most felt by those earning the least. Finally, we introduce a job retention scheme as implemented by the UK Government and find that it spreads the economic hardship more equitably.
| S-EPMC8425362 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Firearm-related violence is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality and is at the center of a major public health and policy debate in the United States. Despite the critical role of data in informing this debate, accurate and comprehensive data on firearm sales and ownership is not readily available. In this study, we evaluate the potential of using firearm-related internet search queries as a complementary, freely available, and near-real-time data source for tracking firearm sales and ownership that enables analysis at finer geographic and temporal scales. (Here, we examine data by state and by month to compare with other data sources, but search engine volume can be analyzed by city and by the week or by day). We validate search query volume against available data on background checks in all 50 US states, and find that they are highly correlated over time (Pearson's r = 0.96, Spearman's ρ = 0.94) and space (Pearson's r = 0.78, Spearman's ρ = 0.76). We find that stratifying this analysis by gun type (long-gun vs. handgun) increases this correlation dramatically, across both time and space. We also find a positive association between firearm-related search query volume and firearm-related mortality (Pearson's r = 0.87, Spearman's ρ = 0.90), and a negative association with the strength of state-level firearm control policies (Pearson's r = -0.82, Spearman's ρ = -0.83). Based on these findings, we propose a framework for prospective surveillance that incorporates firearm-related internet search volume as a useful complementary data source to inform the public health policy debate on this issue.
| S-EPMC7679459 | biostudies-literature
Project description: Not available
| S-EPMC8316609 | biostudies-literature
Project description:A substantial literature shows that U.S. early childhood interventions have important long-term economic benefits. However, there is little evidence on this question for developing countries. We report substantial effects on the earnings of participants in a randomized intervention conducted in 1986-1987 that gave psychosocial stimulation to growth-stunted Jamaican toddlers. The intervention consisted of weekly visits from community health workers over a 2-year period that taught parenting skills and encouraged mothers and children to interact in ways that develop cognitive and socioemotional skills. The authors reinterviewed 105 out of 129 study participants 20 years later and found that the intervention increased earnings by 25%, enough for them to catch up to the earnings of a nonstunted comparison group identified at baseline (65 out of 84 participants).
| S-EPMC4574862 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The US government maintains that local sanctuary policies prevent deportations of violent criminals and increase crime. This report tests those claims by combining Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation data and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) crime data with data on the implementation dates of sanctuary policies between 2010 and 2015. Sanctuary policies reduced deportations of people who were fingerprinted by states or counties by about one-third. Those policies also changed the composition of deportations, reducing deportations of people with no criminal convictions by half-without affecting deportations of people with violent convictions. Sanctuary policies also had no detectable effect on crime rates. These findings suggest that sanctuary policies, although effective at reducing deportations, do not threaten public safety.
| S-EPMC7959582 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundIncreasing mortality among men from drugs, alcohol and suicides is a growing public health concern in many countries. Collectively known as "deaths of despair", they are seen to stem from unprecedented economic pressures and a breakdown in social support structures.MethodsWe use high-quality population wide Scottish data to calculate directly age-standardized mortality rates for men aged 15-44 between 1980 and 2018 for 15 leading causes of mortality. Absolute and relative inequalities in mortality by cause are calculated using small-area deprivation and the slope and relative indices of inequality (SII and RIIL) for the years 2001-2018.ResultsSince 1980 there have been only small reductions in mortality among men aged 15-44 in Scotland. In that period drug-related deaths have increased from 1.2 (95% CI 0.7-1.4) to 44.9 (95% CI 42.5-47.4) deaths per 100,000 and are now the leading cause of mortality. Between 2001 and 2018 there have been small reductions in absolute but not in relative inequalities in all-cause mortality. However, absolute inequalities in mortality from drugs have doubled from SII = 66.6 (95% CI 61.5-70.9) in 2001-2003 to SII = 120.0 (95% CI 113.3-126.8) in 2016-2018. Drugs are the main contributor to inequalities in mortality, and together with alcohol harm and suicides make up 65% of absolute inequalities in mortality.ConclusionsContrary to the substantial reductions in mortality across all ages in the past decades, deaths among young men are increasing from preventable causes. Attempts to reduce external causes of mortality have focused on a single cause of death and not been effective in reducing mortality or inequalities in mortality from external causes in the long-run. To reduce deaths of despair, action should be taken to address social determinants of health and reduce socioeconomic inequalities.
| S-EPMC7716282 | biostudies-literature