BACKGROUND Unemployment has a number of negative consequences, such as decreased income and poor self-rated health. However, the relationships between unemployment, income, and health are not fully understood. Longitudinal studies have investigated the health effect of unemployment and income separately, but the mediating role of income remains to be scrutinized. Using longitudinal data and met...

Objective To assess the extent to which observed associations between income inequality and mortality at population level are statistical artifacts. Design Indirect "what if" simulation using observed risks of mortality at individual level as a function of income to construct hypothetical state-level mortality specific for age and sex as if the statistical artifact argument were 100% correct. M...

This study was aimed to examine the relationship between individual, socioeconomic context and depressive symptom among Korean population. Data were the Korean Community Health Survey (KCHS), a nationwide survey collected from 253 local communities including 230,715 adults aged 19 yr or over. To identify depressive symptom, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale (CES-D) was used....

Recent research has suggested that inequality in the distribution of income is associated with increased mortality, even after accounting for average income levels. Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), we investigated whether inequality in the distribution of income within US states is related to the prevalence of four cardiovascular disease risk factors (body...

This paper develops a framework for the quantitative analysis of individual income dynamics, mobility and welfare. Individual income is assumed to follow a stochastic process with two (unobserved) components, an i.i.d. component representing measurement error or transitory income shocks and an AR(1) component representing persistent changes in income. We use a tractable consumption-saving model...

OBJECTIVE To explore the relationship between low and very low birth weights, mother's age, individual socioeconomic status and area deprivation. DESIGN Analysis of the incidence of low and very low birth weights by area deprivation, maternal age, social class of household and estimated income. SETTING England 1996-2000. SUBJECTS 2 894 440 singleton live births and the 10% sample of these...

BACKGROUND Cardiovascular inflammation is a key contributor to the development of atherosclerosis and the prediction of cardiovascular events among healthy women. An emerging literature suggests biomarkers of inflammation vary by geography of residence at the state-level, and are associated with individual-level socioeconomic status. Associations between cardiovascular inflammation and state-le...

We test the relative income hypothesis that an individual's health depends on the distribution of income in a reference group, as well as on the income of the individual. We use data on 231 208 individuals in Great Britain from 19 rounds of the General Household Survey between 1979 and 2000. Results are insensitive to the measure of self-assessed health used but the sign and significance of the...

A number of recent papers have found evidence of interdependencies in utility functions, in that, ceteris paribus, individual well-being falls as others' income or consumption increases. This paper asks if, in addition, the distribution of income in the reference group matters. I consider full-time employees in eleven waves of British panel data, and take life satisfaction and the GHQ-12 as mea...

BACKGROUND Despite the increasing belief that the places where people live influence their health, there is surprisingly little consistent evidence for their associations with mental health. We investigated the joint effect of community and individual-level socio-economic deprivation and social cohesion on individual mental health status. METHODS Multilevel analysis of population survey data ...