Job loss and psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic: Longitudinal Analysis from residents in nine predominantly African American low-income neighborhoods.
Health Econ
; 31(9): 1844-1861, 2022 09.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1905853
ABSTRACT
While psychological distress is a common sequelae of job loss, how that relationship continued during the COVID-19 pandemic is unclear, for example, given higher health risk to working due to disease exposure. This paper examines changes in psychological distress depending on job loss among a cohort of randomly selected residents living in nine predominantly African American low-income neighborhoods in Pittsburgh PA across four waves between 2013 and 2020. Between 2013 and 2016, we found an increase in psychological distress after job loss in line with the literature. In contrast, between 2018 and 2020 we found change in psychological distress did not differ by employment loss. However, residents who had financial concerns and lost their jobs had the largest increases in psychological distress, while residents who did not have serious financial concerns-potentially due to public assistance-but experienced job loss had no increase in distress, a better outcome even than those that retained their jobs. Using partial identification, we find job loss during the pandemic decreased psychological distress for those without serious financial concerns. This has important policy implications for how high-risk persons within low-income communities are identified and supported, as well as what type of public assistance may help.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Psychological Distress
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Long Covid
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Health Econ
Journal subject:
Health Services
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Hec.4536
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