Causal and Selective Factors in Sickness

Abstract

Results of a survey of 12,000 wage-earning families in ten localities, made early in 1933, indicated a relatively high rate of disabling illness among families hardest hit by the depression and in particular among those who were on relif in 1932. Factors contributing to this high illness rate among the new poor may have been (I) causal, reduced standards of living affecting the health of these families unfavorably. Or the factors may have been (2) selective, for example (a) sickly wage-earners, unemployed because of illness, were concentrated among the new poor, (b) a tendency to sickliness may be associated with inability to succeed during a period of incresed competition for jobs, even though sickness itself is not the direct cause of unemployment. IIt is believed that the causal factor was more important because (I) the excess in illness rates among the unemployed was found among children as well as adults; (2) the highest illness rate was exhibited by families that suffered the greatest loss of income...