ArticlePsychological medicine2023
To what extent does income explain the effect of unemployment on mental health? Mediation analysis in the UK Household Longitudinal Study.
Article in Psychological medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mental health effects of unemployment and re-employment: a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies.Occupational and environmental medicine · 2025Pooled it
- How Can 'Health in All Policies' Help Maximise the Potential of Microbial Biotechnologies for Health, Equity and Sustainability?Microbial biotechnology · 2025Review
- Economic hardships during COVID-19 and maternal mental health: Combining samples with low incomes across three cities.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- Estimating the causal effects of income on health: how researchers' definitions of "income" matter.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Evaluating the influence of taxation and social security policies on psychological distress: A microsimulation study of the UK during the COVID-19 economic crisis.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2024Article
- Short-term impacts of Universal Basic Income on population mental health inequalities in the UK: A microsimulation modelling study.PLoS medicine · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundEmployment and income are important determinants of mental health (MH), but the extent that unemployment effects are mediated by reduced income is unclear. We estimated the total effect (TE) of unemployment on MH and the controlled direct effect (CDE) not acting via income.
methodsWe included adults 25-64 years from nine waves of the UK Household Longitudinal Study (
resultsThe TE of unemployment on CMD risk was OR 1.66 (95% CI 1.57-1.76), with 7.09% (6.21-7.97) absolute difference in prevalence; equivalent CDEs were OR 1.55 (1.46-1.66) and 6.08% (5.13-7.03). Income mediated 14.22% (8.04-20.40) of the TE. Percentage mediation was higher for job losses [15.10% (6.81-23.39)] than gains [8.77% (0.36-17.19)]; it was lowest for those 25-40 years [7.99% (-2.57 to 18.51)] and in poverty [2.63% (-2.22 to 7.49)].
conclusionsA high proportion of the short-term effect of unemployment on MH is not explained by income, particularly for younger people and those in poverty. Population attributable fractions suggested 16.49% of CMD burden was due to unemployment, with 13.90% directly attributable to job loss rather than resultant income changes. Similar analytical approaches could explore how this differs across contexts, by other factors, and consider longer-term effects.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.