Does contextual unemployment matter for health status across the life course?

• Background: Individual health is affected by one’s individual life conditionsand by the context in which individuals live, interact anddevelop. Research shows that living in a neighbourhood withhigh levels of unemployment might affect residents’ health, atleast partially independent of own labour market status.However, how such contextual-individual transactions playout across the life course is unknown. The present study aims:(i) to examine whether neighbourhood unemployment isrelated to health status across the life course independently ofthe individual employment from adolescence to middle age(age 16 to 42); and (ii) to analyse whether this relationship isobservable at four specific life course periods from adolescenceto middle age (age 16, 21, 30 and 42).Methods: A 26-year prospective Swedish cohort (n = 1010), linked toregister data on neighbourhood unemployment. Individualemployment and functional somatic symptoms were measuredby self-reported questionnaire data. Two models of hierarchallinear regressions were built: a longitudinal analysis, and a setof age-specific cross-sectional analyses at each age.Results: The longitudinal analysis showed an independent contributionof neighbourhood unemployment and individual employmenton FSS across the life course. The cross-sectional analysisshowed an association at age 30, when accounting forindividual employment, but no association was found at age21 and 42.Conclusions: Neighbourhood unemployment has a significant relationshipwith functional somatic symptoms across the life course. Thereseems to be an age-specific pattern where neighbourhoodunemployment may have stronger implications in earlyadulthood than in other phases of the life courseKey messages:High neighbourhood unemployment predicts higher levelsof individual FSS across the life course, independently ofown labour market position, socioeconomic status andeducationThese findings stress the importance of neighbourhoodunemployment for current health status as well as development of health status across the life course, particular duringearly adulthood

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)