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Health And The 2008 Economic Recession: Evidence From The United Kingdom, Thomas Astell-Burt, Xiaoqi Feng

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Introduction: The economic recession which began in 2008 has resulted in a substantial increase in unemployment across many countries, including the United Kingdom. Strong association between unemployment and poor health status among individuals is widely recognised. We investigated whether the prevalence of poor health at a population level increased concurrent to the rise in unemployment during the economic recession, and whether the impact on health varied by geographical and socioeconomic circumstances. Method: Health, demographic and socioeconomic measures on 1.36 million survey responses aged 16-64 were extracted from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey of the United Kingdom, collected every three months, …