A series of linked studies to examine the relationship between unemployment and health, using data from the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS).

Northern Ireland is one of the most deprived areas in the UK and until fairly recently, consistently had the highest rates of unemployment, and long-term unemployment, and lowest proportions of the population of working age defined as economically active, of any of the regions within the UK. Remarkably however, there has been very little research into the relationship between unemployment and ill-health here, due principally to the absence of adequate data sources. Most would agree that research in this area is fraught with methodological difficulties and that many questions surrounding the relationship between unemployment and ill-health still remain unanswered. This proposed study is a series of linked studies using the NILS to examine the relationship between unemployment and ill-health in Northern Ireland.