Long term illness and reported mental health conditions during recession: exploring evidence from the Scottish Longitudinal Study
Curtis, S., Pearce, J. & Dibben, C. (2017) UK Administrative Data Research Network Annual Research Conference, Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, UK, 1 - 2 June 2017 [SLS]
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Abstract:
This paper reports on a project which is underway to explore how local labour market conditions relate to reported mental illness and self-reported mental health conditions. The project aims to contribute to a growing body of research which seeks to relate changes in local socio-economic conditions over the lifecourse of places with changes in health over the lifecourse of individuals. The Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS) provides a valuable resource for work of this type, since it relates to a large (5.3%), representative sample of the Scottish population, and is especially interesting for the work reported here in that it includes 2011 census data on self-reported mental illness, as well as reported long term illness data that were also collected in other parts of the UK. This paper reports on part of the work which has classified local authorities according to trends in employment rates and hourly pay 2006-2011, as indicators of the economic impact of recession, and on how this is being linked to the SLS and analysed in relation to the reported health outcomes of interest. Analysis of growth trajectories of these economic indicators for local authorities in Scotland (derived from data published by NOMIS) demonstrates that the recession has tended to reinforce economic inequalities between some groups of local authorities and this project will examine whether there is evidence that this increasing inequality among places was significant for health inequalities.
