PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Liam Wright AU - Jenny A Head AU - Stephen Jivraj TI - How robust is the association between youth unemployment and later mental health? An analysis of longitudinal data from English schoolchildren AID - 10.1136/oemed-2021-107473 DP - 2021 Aug 01 TA - Occupational and Environmental Medicine PG - 618--620 VI - 78 IP - 8 4099 - http://oem.bmj.com/content/78/8/618.short 4100 - http://oem.bmj.com/content/78/8/618.full SO - Occup Environ Med2021 Aug 01; 78 AB - Background Several studies show that youth unemployment is associated with worse mental health later in life. However, existing studies report results for only one model, or a few models, and use regression adjustment to support causal claims. We use two novel methods to address these gaps in the literature.Methods We use data from Next Steps, a cohort study of English schoolchildren who entered the labour market in the aftermath of the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, and measure mental health using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) at age 25. We use specification curve analysis and a negative control outcome design (a form of placebo test) to test whether associations between youth unemployment and later GHQ-12 scores are sensitive to model specification or are likely to be confounded by unobserved factors.Results We find that the association between unemployment and later GHQ-12 is qualitatively similar across 99.96% of the 120 000 models we run. Statistically significant associations with two placebo outcomes, height and patience, are not present when regression adjustments are made.Conclusions There is clear evidence that youth unemployment is related to later mental health, and some evidence that this cannot be easily explained by unobserved confounding.Data from Next Steps are publicly available through the UK Data Service. The code to replicate this analysis is at https://osf.io/y8hfk.