Prompts winter weather advisories as cold air moves in Friday night

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

When the American economy tanks, so does public health. That's according to researchers gathering studies and data five years after the end of the recession.  

"If the issue is largely invisible in the nation's news outlets, it is drawing the attention of a growing number of public health researchers, some of whom are beginning to identify possible links between the Great Recession — the worst economic downturn in the U.S. since the Great Depression of the 1930s — and a growing list of physical and mental health ills, from heart attacks to obesity to depression," 

according to the Harvard School of Public Health report

. "In addition to cataloging the health harms resulting directly from stress, many studies suggest that economic pressures may also give rise to a host of unhealthy behaviors — such as bingeing on sugary or high-fat comfort foods, smoking, and drinking to escape worries — as well as to widening economic disparities, which exact a documented toll on people's health."

Kasisomayajula Viswanath, professor of health communication at Harvard School of Public Health, said it's still too early to see the full effect of the Great Recession on health and health-related costs, but the incoming research shows it is "substantial and enduring."

Viswanath and Basu join The Daily Circuit to discuss the economy's impact on health.

Recession health costs will be 'substantial and enduring,' researcher says

Go Deeper.

Like this?