Commentary: If economic expansion threatens public health, should epidemiologists recommend recession?

Let us stipulate, for the sake of argument, that econometric analyses such as those described in this issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology correctly characterize the association between the performance of the US economy and all cause, age standardized mortality, and that the relationship generalizes to other times and more functionally and geographically discrete economies. Epidemiologists would be left, we believe, with at least two questions. First, what can we infer regarding the effect of changing economies on health from these findings? Second, what do these inferences imply for theory or public health practice? We do not think that epidemiologists will, or should, infer from such econometric findings that loss of jobs and or income, the most feared experiences presumably inflicted by contrac