Bobby Miller
Writer Website
Qualified and Healthy: The Connection between Wellbeing and Employment
1,200 words
Ideally speaking, anyone who is willing to work hard should be employed. This lets them contribute to society while making money for them to spend on their own desires and needs. However, as the recent recession has made obvious, this isn’t always the case. Some people want to work, but they can’t find employment. Recent studies have shown that people with poor mental or even physical health are especially vulnerable to unemployment, which may make our society consider new ways to handle the unemployed segment of our population.
Breast Cancer and Unemployment
Even breast cancer, the illness that so many activists wish to promote research for, can hinder a person’s job search.
Dr. Reshma Jagsi, an associate professor of radiation oncology at the University of Michigan Medical School, released the results of her study on April 28, 2014. As cited on EurekAlert.org, Dr. Jagsi found that “nearly one-third of breast cancer survivors who were working when they began treatment were unemployed four years later. Women who received chemotherapy were most affected.” This is despite the fact that 55 percent of the women who were out of work wanted to be employed. Latinas and blacks were especially likely to suffer financial hardships after being diagnosed with breast cancer. This is a pressing issue to consider when addressing unemployment because roughly 235,000 Americans are diagnosed with breast cancer every year.
Dr. Reshma Jagsi of the University of Michigan Medical School (Credit: NewsWise.com)
People who are diagnosed with other forms of cancer suffer financial hardships as well, according to BreastCancer.org. Survivors of the illness are 37 percent less likely to be employed than members of the general population are. Individuals who survive colon, uterine, ovarian, and breast cancer tend to suffer the most financially speaking.
For people who have had to endure cancer, the website CancerAndCareers.org gives advice on how to recuperate financially. For instance, the website advises cancer survivors to explain the gap in their employment as a family or health issue that has been resolved now. They do not need to share their diagnosis with anyone else.
Traumatic Brain Injuries and Unemployment
Another recent study has demonstrated a connection between traumatic brain injury and homelessness. Dr. Jane Topolovec-Vranic of St. Michael’s Hospital, a research facility devoted to caring for Toronto’s needy inner-city residents, studied a population of homeless men. On April 25, she announced that nearly half of them “had suffered at least one traumatic brain injury in their life and 87 percent of those injuries occurred before the men lost their homes,” according to ScienceDaily.com.
Dr. Jane Topolovec-Vranic, a clinical researcher in St. Michael’s Neuroscience Research Program (Credit: St. Michael’s Hospital)
As the website for St. Michael’s Hospital goes on to note, common causes of these traumatic brain injuries were assaults, sports accidents, automobile injuries, and falls. Since a large portion of these men experienced brain injuries before losing their homes, this challenges the assumption that homeless people are simply too lazy to work.
It’s disturbing that traumatic brain injuries are so closely related to homelessness when one considers just how common such injuries are, especially among young athletes. According to another study performed by St. Michael’s Hospital a year earlier, one in five teenagers from Ontario had “suffered a traumatic brain injury that left them unconscious for five minutes or required them to be hospitalized overnight,” according to ScienceDaily.com. The most dangerous activities were ice hockey and soccer, which caused more than half of the injuries. (MomsTeam.org notes that football is the leading cause of concussions in US high schools, though.)
Dr. Gabriela Ilie noted in her study that these sports injuries were more common in males than females, which is significant considering that males take longer to fully recover from a concussion, according to the Radiological Society of North America. “Traumatic brain injury is preventable,” Dr. Ilie said. “If we know who is more vulnerable, when and how these injuries are occurring, we can talk to students, coaches, and parents about it. We can take preventive action and find viable solutions to reduce their occurrence and long-term effects.”
Since young brains are still developing, it’s especially important that we promote safety in sports for teenagers and children. Failure to do so could have long-term consequences. After all, as St. Michael’s Hospital also found earlier this year, teenagers who have suffered from a concussion are more likely to attempt suicide.
The fact that nearly half of homeless men have suffered from traumatic brain injuries makes sense considering that cognitive functioning is essential to many lines of work. Policymakers should consider how we can rehabilitate people who have suffered from such injuries so that they can contribute to society and make a living.
Mental Health and Unemployment
Other mental health issues can limit a person’s career possibilities as well. Specifically, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 60 to 80 percent of people living with a mental illness are unemployed. Plus, many who do have a job are underemployed. Even those who have earned a college degree often hold a minimum wage job. This affects not just mentally ill people but also the taxpaying population as a whole. “An estimated $25 billion is spent annually for disability payments to people with mental illness[es],” as the National Alliance on Mental Illness explains.
The alliance notes that the federal Vocational Rehabilitation system does little to help people suffering from mental illnesses. However, it points out that over a dozen states, such as Kansas and Connecticut, have used evidence-based practices and Medicaid buy-in programs to help mentally ill individuals. About two thirds of people who receive evidence-based employment services specially designed for individuals with mental illnesses “become competitively employed,” according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness website.
The International Center for Clubhouse Development also promotes a model in which people with mental illnesses come together for education, training, recovery activities and— ultimately—employment.
While a mental illness can make unemployment more likely, the causation arrow points the other way as well. Being unemployed can make a person more likely to develop a mental illness or other health issue related to stress. The American Psychological Association (APA) notes that, as far back as the Great Depression, psychologists were acutely aware that long-term unemployment could be detrimental to a person’s mental health. Being unable to find a job can make a person feel helpless or useless.
Social Psychologist Marie Jahoda believed that unemployment also deprives a person of “a structured day, shared experiences and status,” according to the APA’s official website. Even these seemingly small forces can help keep a person mentally stable, in her view. The APA’s Arthur Goldsmith, PhD, and Timothy Diette, PhD, go on to argue that “those with more education suffer a larger emotional penalty for being long-term unemployed.”
Arthur Goldsmith, PhD, and Timothy Diette, PhD (Credit: APA.org)
So, psychologists have clearly made a connection between unemployment and health that goes two ways: unemployment can worsen health, and poor health can lead to unemployment. A growing body of research also suggests that physical issues such as cancer can also harm a person’s ability to find stable, productive work. These difficulties are issues that policymakers need to keep in mind when developing new ways to combat unemployment in our particularly troubled economy today.
Bobby Miller originally wrote this article for the digital magazine Nvate in May of 2014. Due to its age, some of the information or links in the article may be outdated.