Health Impacts of the Great Recession: a Critical Review

Abstract

The severity, sudden onset, and multipronged nature of the Great Recession (2007–2009) provided a unique opportunity to examine the health impacts of macroeconomic downturn. We comprehensively review empirical literature examining the relationship between the Recession and mental and physical health outcomes in developed nations. Overall, studies reported detrimental impacts of the Recession on health, particularly mental health. Macro- and individual-level employment- and housing-related sequelae of the Recession were associated with declining fertility and self-rated health, and increasing morbidity, psychological distress, and suicide, although traffic fatalities and population-level alcohol consumption declined. Health impacts were stronger among men and racial/ethnic minorities. Importantly, strong social safety nets in some European countries appear to have buffered those populations from negative health effects. This literature, however, still faces multiple methodological challenges, and more time may be needed to observe the Recession’s full health impact. We conclude with suggestions for future work in this field.

The Great Recession and suicide

“…Most prior work and syntheses of evidence, including US studies, have argued that working age men have been most adversely affected [15][16][17]. In contrast, we found that the only age-gender groups that demonstrated excess deaths due to the recession were men aged 65 and over and women aged 15-24 years.…”

Impact of the financial crisis on COPD burden: Greece as a case study

“…The literature regarding this topic is an assortment of opposing data. It is supported historically that economic downturns are associated with higher rates of morbidity, all-cause mortality and poorer health status [3, 6-8, [74][75][76][77][78][79]. The association between economic turmoil as a destructive health promoter that leads to high cigarette smoking rates is a matter of debate [3, 6-8, 10, 74-79].…”

“…The association between economic turmoil as a destructive health promoter that leads to high cigarette smoking rates is a matter of debate [3, 6-8, 10, 74-79]. Economic collapse, through a detrimental impact on the employment sector, by lowering lower-paid employees' wages and increasing unemployment, may lead to a shift towards less healthy lifestyle choices such as smoking [74][75][76][77][78][79]. It has been found that there is a noticeable decline in the happiness levels in countries that are hit hard by recession, so a sovereign debt crisis may affect smoking behaviour [74][75][76][77][78][79].…”

“…Economic collapse, through a detrimental impact on the employment sector, by lowering lower-paid employees' wages and increasing unemployment, may lead to a shift towards less healthy lifestyle choices such as smoking [74][75][76][77][78][79]. It has been found that there is a noticeable decline in the happiness levels in countries that are hit hard by recession, so a sovereign debt crisis may affect smoking behaviour [74][75][76][77][78][79]. Smokers may be citing an increase in perceived stress to justify their relapse or failure to quit, and they are unable to quit their ongoing behaviour because of the offsetting increase in stress, thus falling into a vicious circle [74][75][76][77][78][79].…”

“…It has been found that there is a noticeable decline in the happiness levels in countries that are hit hard by recession, so a sovereign debt crisis may affect smoking behaviour [74][75][76][77][78][79]. Smokers may be citing an increase in perceived stress to justify their relapse or failure to quit, and they are unable to quit their ongoing behaviour because of the offsetting increase in stress, thus falling into a vicious circle [74][75][76][77][78][79]. However, other studies have reported that economic recession is associated with a decline in the prevalence of cigarette smoking [1] and that a crisis may be health promoting [68,[80][81][82].…”