# Quantifying the burden of depressive symptoms in older Americans that is attributable to involuntary job loss: a counterfactual approach

> **NIH NIH R03** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY · 2022 · $80,250

## Abstract

The burden of depressive symptoms among older Americans over the period 1992-2018 that is
attributable to involuntary job loss, and the extent to which intervening on various mechanisms
could mitigate it, have not been estimated. The long-term goal is to identify key mechanisms (e.g.,
loss of health insurance, unemployment, inadequate reemployment, financial hardship, etc.) that
affect depressive symptoms over time in older Americans after job loss, in order to guide policy
and interventions. As the first step toward this long-term goal, the objective of this application is
to quantify the burden of depressive symptoms among older Americans that is attributable to job
loss, adjusting for time-varying confounding, and to evaluate time to reemployment as one
mechanism. The central hypothesis is that involuntary job loss increases the burden of depressive
symptoms among older Americans of limited means and that unemployment is one of the key
mechanisms by which this occurs. The rationale for this project is that no one has yet analyzed
data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) using a counterfactual framework or leveraging
the full richness of the longitudinal data, and doing so will be essential for identifying mechanisms
and thus interventions to alleviate depressive symptoms among older adults. The hypothesis will
be tested by pursuing two specific aims: 1) Compare depressive symptoms burden in HRS under
the observed employment histories to what would have happened if no one had ever suffered an
involuntary job loss during follow-up. 2) Compare depressive symptoms burden in HRS under the
observed employment histories to what would have happened if everyone who experienced a job
loss during follow-up had soon been reemployed. For both aims, the parametric g-formula will be
applied to estimate counterfactual outcomes under hypothetical interventions while controlling for
time-varying confounding. The proposed research is innovative because, instead of comparing
those who lost a job to those who did not, it frames the question in terms of hypothetical
interventions on employment to estimate changes in the burden of depressive symptoms that
would have been observed in the whole population under those interventions. The proposed
research is significant because more than half of Americans in this age group will experience an
involuntary job loss; the rigorous analysis proposed will provide estimates of both the
corresponding burden of depressive symptoms and the extent to which these symptoms can be
mitigated by reemployment, ultimately helping to set priorities for interventions.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10491991
- **Project number:** 5R03AG070694-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
- **Principal Investigator:** Sally Picciotto
- **Activity code:** R03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $80,250
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-09-30 → 2024-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10491991

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10491991, Quantifying the burden of depressive symptoms in older Americans that is attributable to involuntary job loss: a counterfactual approach (5R03AG070694-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10491991. Licensed CC0.

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