Missing work?

Missing work during the cold and flu season affects impoverished people with increased stressors, anxiety, and depression. Missed days mean missed pay and the additional cost of emergency care. Missed work often includes caring for a minor child when school is on break.

In other words no time for rest and healing. The missed day from work often becomes a continual day of exhaustion.

Empathy for those living in poverty while missing a day of work due to illness is an opportunity for communities to ask if that person needs a bit of soup, bread, or a simple kind word.

Ridley et al. (2020) explore the causal relationship between poverty and common mental illnesses-depression and anxiety-and the underlying mechanisms.

Ridley, M., Rao, G., Schilbach, F., & Patel, V. (2020). Poverty, depression, and anxiety: Causal evidence and mechanisms. Science, 370(6522). https://doi.org/10.3386/w27157