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What were the longer-term impacts for older workers who experienced a work disruption at the start of the pandemic?

Head shots of Leah Abrams and Lindsay Kobayashi

Our recent Sloan Fellow on Aging and Work Leah Abrams, along with our former Bell Fellow Lindsay Kobayashi, and their colleague Jessica Finlay, have published their findings in Innovation in Aging, reporting on the economic and mental ramifications six months after the layoffs, furloughs, and reduced hours many workers experienced in early spring 2020. Here’s a findings snapshot: of those who lost their job, 1/3 were still out of work…

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How are changes in working status due to COVID-19 impacting the mental health of those Americans close to retirement age?

Head shot of Leah Abrams

Harvard Pop Center’s Sloan Fellow on Aging and Work Leah Abrams, PhD, and recent Harvard Bell Fellow Lindsay Kobayashi, PhD, along with a colleague, have published their findings which reveal that workers who lost their jobs (more commonly associated with those who were under age 65 and those with less than a college degree), were furloughed, or experienced a reduction in hours suffered from increased loneliness and depressive symptoms, whereas…

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How does the interaction of multiple life events, plus our age, affect our health?

Recent Bell Fellow Juli Simon Thomas, PhD, has published a study in the Longitudinal and Life Course Studies: International Journal. She finds that the negative health impacts of such disruptive events as divorce and job loss are worsened when they overlap (the more the events, the worse the health impacts) and these events take a greater toll on health when experienced at a later age.

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Today’s Forum “What Shapes Health” with Lisa Berkman topic on NPR Morning Edition

Today’s live webcast of The Forum “What Shapes Health” at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, presented in collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and NPR, is a topic on today’s morning edition on NPR. Kate Strully, a former Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar at the Harvard Pop Center, shares her research on the impact of job loss on health in this news story.