A systematic review of evidence on employment transitions and weight change by gender in ageing populations.

BACKGROUND: Becoming unemployed is associated with poorer health, including weight gain. Middle- and older-age adults are a growing segment of workforces globally, but they are also more vulnerable to changes to employment status, especially during economic shocks. Expected workforce exits over the next decade may exacerbate both the obesity epidemic and the economic burden of obesity. This review extends current knowledge on economic correlates of health to assess whether employment transitions impact body weight by sex/gender among middle-aged and older adults. METHODS: Eight bibliometric databases were searched between June and July 2021, supplemented by hand-searches, with no restriction on publication date or country. Longitudinal studies, or reviews, were eligible when examining body weight as a function of employment status change in adults ≥50 years. Data extraction and quality appraisal used predefined criteria; reported findings were analysed by narrative synthesis. RESULTS: We screened 6,001 unique abstracts and identified 12 articles that met inclusion criteria. All studies examined retirement; of which two also examined job-loss. Overall, studies showed that retirement led to weight gain or no difference in weight change compared to non-retirees; however, reported effects were not consistent for either women or men across studies or for both women and men within a study. Reported effects also differed by occupation: weight gain was more commonly observed among retirees from physical occupations but not among retirees from sedentary occupations. Few studies assessed the role of health behaviours; sleep was the least studied. Most studies were medium quality. CONCLUSIONS: Existing studies do not provide a clear enough picture of how employment transitions affect body weight. Firm conclusions on the impact of employment transitions on weight cannot be made without further high-quality evidence that considers the role of gender, job-type, other health behaviours, and other transitions, like job-loss.

Trends in suicide attempts and suicide deaths before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in New Taipei City, Taiwan: an interrupted time-series analysis.

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is an unprecedented global health crisis that may cause mental health problems and heighten suicide risk. We investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on trends in suicide attempts and suicide deaths in New Taipei City, Taiwan. METHODS: The current study used the official daily data on suicide attempts and deaths in New Taipei City, Taiwan (4 million inhabitants) between 2015 and 2020 from the Taiwan National Suicide Prevention Reporting System. Interrupted time-series (ITS) analyses with parameters corrected by the estimated autocorrelations were applied on weekly aggregated data to examine whether the suicide trends during the early COVID-19 pandemic (late January to July 2020) deviated from previous trends (January 2015 to late January 2020). The impact due to the suicide prevention policy change was also examined (since August 2020). RESULTS: ITS analyses revealed no significant increases in both mean and trend on weekly suicide deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic and after the policy change. In contrast, there was a significant increasing trend in weekly suicide attempts since the COVID-19 outbreak at the rate of 1.54 attempts per week (95% confidence interval 0.49-2.60; p = 0.004). Sex difference analysis revealed that, however, this increasing trend was observed only in females not in males. CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 pandemic has different impacts on suicides attempts and deaths during the early pandemic in New Taipei City, Taiwan. The COVID-19 outbreak drastically increased the trend of suicide attempts. In contrast, the number of suicide deaths had remained constant in the investigated periods.