Doctoral Dissertation Research: Precarious Employment and Health Outcomes

由于药物过量、自杀、肝病或绝望而死亡，中年人的死亡率比过去更高。常见的解释归咎于经济状况，这表明美国人由于经济前景黯淡而面临越来越大的压力，导致破坏性的健康行为和不良的身心健康状况。该项目将研究不稳定就业的特征如何影响健康的多个方面，包括饮酒，处方药使用和中年人的抑郁症状。该项目将研究这些关联是否因性别和家庭社会经济地位而异，以及它们是否因国家一级的社会政策而异。 例如，该项目假设，与财政援助有关的州一级社会政策（例如，州所得税抵免）和健康（例如，根据《平价医疗法案》扩大医疗补助）塑造了不稳定的就业如何影响健康结果。该项目将为社会政策提供投入，建议各州采取行动改善公民健康，并为解决人口健康问题的组织和机构提供干预点，该项目研究中年工人就业不稳定的短期和长期健康后果。该项目将分析健康与退休研究（HRS），这是一项正在进行的，具有全国代表性的美国50岁以上成年人样本。自1992年以来，HRS每两年进行一次（12波），对非洲裔美国人和西班牙裔家庭进行过度抽样。分析样本将包括目前在四个出生队列中的每一波（大约50至65岁）就业的受访者。该项目将特别关注最年轻的群体（2010年为50-55岁），因为最近对这些中年人的发病率和死亡率给予了关注。使用固定效应回归和增长混合模型的纵向模型将允许通过州一级和家庭一级特征评估不稳定工作与身心健康结果之间的关系。 该项目将为涉及社会压力、不稳定工作和人口健康的理论提供信息，并将在组织、州和国家层面提供政策指导，以促进这一人群更好的健康。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Adults in midlife are dying at a higher rate than in the past due to drug overdose, suicide, and liver disease, or deaths of despair. Common explanations blame economic conditions, suggesting that Americans are facing increasing stress due to bleak economic prospects, leading to destructive health behaviors and poor mental and physical health. This project will examine how characteristics of precarious employment contribute to multiple dimensions of health, including alcohol consumption, prescription drug use, and depressive symptoms in midlife adults. The project will study whether these associations vary by gender and household socioeconomic status, and whether they vary by state-level social policies. For example, the project hypothesizes that state-level social policies related to financial assistance (e.g., state Earned Income Tax Credit) and health (e.g., expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act) shape how precarious employment affects health outcomes. The project will provide input to social polices suggesting actions for states to take to improve the health of citizens, as well as intervention points for organizations and agencies addressing problematic health patterns in the population.This project studies both the short- and long-term health consequences of precarious employment among midlife workers. The project will analyze the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), an ongoing, nationally representative sample of adults over age 50 in the United States. The HRS has been administered every two years since 1992 (12 waves) and oversamples African-American and Hispanic households. The analytical sample will include respondents who are currently employed at each wave (approximately age 50 to 65) across four birth cohorts. The project will pay particular attention to the youngest cohort (age 50-55 in 2010), given recent attention to the morbidity and mortality of these midlife adults. Longitudinal models using fixed effects regression and growth mixture modeling will allow assessments of the relationship between precarious work and mental and physical health outcomes by state-level and household-level characteristics. The project will inform theories involving social stress, precarious work, and population health, and will provide policy guidance at the organizational, state, and national levels regarding ways to promote better health for this population.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.