Economic instability, unemployment rates, behavioral risks, and mortality rates in Scotland, 1952-1983

Controlling for the significant effects of per capita cigarette, spirits, and fat consumption, and cold winter temperatures, there is in Scotland a significant long-term relation (at least a decade) between cumulative change in unemployment rates and mortality rates - for all causes, for total heart disease, and in particular for ischemic heart disease. Also, the exponential trend in real per capita income is related to mortality declines. Other writers have encountered difficulty in measuring this long-term relation between unemployment and cause-specific mortality in Scotland in the absence of controls for at least alcohol and tobacco consumption per capita. -from Author