About the Webinar:
Suicide and fatal overdose rates have increased in the U.S. over the past few decades. These trends are particularly striking for midlife adults without college degrees. This trend may be due, in part, to a decline in manufacturing which has limited stable employment options for this population. Erosion of the Michigan automobile industry over the past 50 years provides an example. This webinar will discuss our ongoing cohort study of 26,800 Michigan autoworkers with mortality follow-up from 1970 to 2015, which offers a striking case study. We looked at suicide and overdose in this population in relation to leaving work. We used age at leaving work as an indicator of involuntary worker exit and compared suicide and overdose risk between workers who left work younger than retirement age to risk among retirees.