The immediate post-communist economic collapse of some eastern European countries resulted in a dramatic decrease in life expectancy. There is evidence that mental health is negatively impacted during economic crisis, resulting in an increased suicide rate. Economic crises are surely bad for your health. Or are they?
We know that a richer country is not necessarily a healthier one when applied to across different countries (see for example US vs their Caribbean neighbours such as Cuba or Costa Rica). What may be less well known is that poorer can actually mean healthier, if we consider individual countries from a longitudinal perspective. But is that really so counter-intuitive? Believe it or not, numerous studies have established the counter-cyclical nature of the association between mortality and economic growth, with a suggested lag of about 2 years. Many health indicators improved in Cuba as a result of the "special period" in the nineties, including a decline in all-cause mortality and in the rates of death from diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Is it possible that we could see similar effects in the UK?
As usual, the devil is in the detail. The impact is greater for children and men than for women. And whether this impact is positive or negative very much depends on the relative impact of the affected conditions on the population's health. Cardiovascular risks factors tend to be better under control during crises and so is the case for motor vehicles accidents. On the contrary, mental health is negatively affected.
Below a few references for further reading:
Catalano R, Goldman-Mellor S, Saxton K, Margerison-Zilko C, Subbaraman M, LeWinn K, Anderson E. The Health Effects of Economic Decline. Annu. Rev. Public Health 2011. 32:431–50
Riva M, Bambra C, Easton S, Curtis S. Hard times or good times? Inequalities in the health effects of economic change. Int J Public Health. 2011 Feb;56(1):3-5.
Tapia Granados JA, Ionides EL. The reversal of the relation between economic growth and health progress: Sweden in the 19th and 20th centuries. J Health Econ. 2008 May;27(3):544-63.
Stuckler D, Meissner C, Fishback P, Basu S, McKee M. Banking crises and mortality during the Great Depression: evidence from US urban populations, 1929-1937. J Epidemiol Comm Health 2011
Stuckler D, Basu S, Suhrcke M, Coutts A, McKe M. The public health eff ect of economic crises and alternative policy responses in Europe: an empirical analysis. Lancet 2009; 374: 315–23
Tapia-Granados JA. Economic growth and health progress in England and Wales: 160 years of a changing relation. January 2011. Working paper available at: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/tapia_granados/files/econ_growth___health_engl__wales_f-2.pdf
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