The mortality risk of jobseeker’s allowance claimants: an analysis using British national benefits data

The aim of this research was to explore the combined effects of social and spatial factors on the mortality risk of British Jobseeker’s Allowance1 (JSA) claimants across time. This involved an analysis of longitudinal National Benefits Data held by the Department of Work & Pensions2 since 1999, which is not publicly available, and the quality of which was previously unknown. The likelihood of dying during the eight-year research period to 2007 was modelled for over seven million JSA claimants in Britain using logistic regression. A model including a range of individual characteristics and data about claim patterns was fitted to each British region/country in order to estimate the probability of dying during the study period for different claimants. Marked geographical variation was found in the risk of mortality as well as significant associations with individual factors such as age, gender, being partnered and having a child. There was interaction between the number of spells on JSA, the length of claim, and how spread these spells were over time.