Longitudinal association of injury or illness with employment and income among young adults.

Authors

Sami Atassi, Em Long-Mills, Dmitry Tumin

Published in

Public health. Volume 260. Pages 106516. Oct 02, 2026. Epub Oct 02, 2026.

Abstract

To examine how recent injury or illness is associated with employment and income among young adults.
Retrospective longitudinal cohort study.
Using 2001-2021 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 cohort data (adults aged 18-41 years), we evaluated associations between self-reported recent injury or illness and employment status as well as log-transformed personal income.
102,642 interviews (8628 respondents) were included, of which 39% involved recent injury or illness. At the most recent interview, 4% of respondents were unemployed, 18% were out of the labor force (OLF), and median personal income was $33,000. Respondents with recent injury or illness were less likely to be unemployed (relative risk ratio [RRR]: 0.91; 95% CI: 0.85, 0.97; p = 0.003) or OLF (RRR: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.83, 0.92; p < 0.001) and had a 67% higher income (β = 0.51; 95% CI: 0.43, 0.59; p < 0.001) than respondents who did not report injury or illness. These associations were explained by controlling for sick leave eligibility (employment outcomes) and lagging the exposure by two years (employment and income outcomes).
Recent injuries or illnesses among young adults did not reduce employment or income, although this finding is confounded by availability of sick leave eligibility or other aspects of economic advantage.

PMID:
42826615
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 03 Oct 2026.

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