Mental and physical health problems can set you back financially for a decade

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-03-28 02:00

International

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People diagnosed with a mental health disorder or physical illness are likely still seeing an impact on their finances a decade after their diagnosis, according to Danish researchers who say this is the case even in countries with a strong financial safety net. The researchers tracked the income of nearly five million people in Denmark over a decade, and identified 125,769 who were diagnosed at a hospital with depression, 77,206 with alcohol use disorder, 82,151 with stroke and 36,868 with breast cancer. Three years after their diagnosis, the researchers say men and women with any of these diagnoses were earning less than their healthy peers, with depression appearing to have the biggest impact. This income gap widened at 10 years for everyone except those diagnosed with breast cancer, the researchers say - for men, losses totalled 13.7% for depression, 10.4% for alcoholism and 4.3% for stroke and for women, losses were 10.2% for depression, 6.7% for alcoholism,2.4% for stroke and 0.6% for breast cancer.

News release

From: JAMA

Lasting Income Costs of Mental and Physical Illness

About The Study: This study estimated income losses from the individual perspective in the 10 years following hospital diagnosis of depression, alcohol use disorder, stroke, and breast cancer from 2000 to 2023 in Denmark. The researchers found that (1) income losses following mental disorder diagnoses were larger than those for physical conditions, though all evaluated diseases led to substantive loss; (2) average losses grew in years following diagnosis, particularly among individuals younger than 40 and those in school, suggesting accumulating disadvantage; and (3) even those outside of the workforce at the time of hospital diagnosis experienced sustained future income loss.

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Journal/
conference: JAMA Health Forum

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Southern Denmark, Denmark

Funder: Funders for this project include Helsefonden, Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond, and the EU Marie Skłodowska- Curie Actions.

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