Amid growing news of layoffs, outsourcing, corporate bankruptcies and downsizing, a study finds that feeling insecure about your job takes a toll on physical and mental health — whether you actually lose your job or not. In fact, the health effects of job insecurity are at least as great as the health effects of a serious or life-threatening illness, according to a study of job insecurity and health in the United States that was to be presented on April 1 at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America in Los Angeles. The study is based on an analysis of data from a nationally representative, longitudinal survey conducted by the Institute for Social Research (ISR), and includes information on more than 1,000 men and women under the age of 60 who were interviewed twice, about three years apart. "The strength of this study is that we not only have multiple measures of insecurity but we also have actual measures of job loss," says Sarah Burgard, a sociologist at ISR and the lead author of the study. Since only those who remained employed at both points in time were included in the analysis, the findings are not attributable to health problems related to actual job loss and extended unemployment. About 25 percent of respondents reported feeling insecure about their jobs in at least one of two interviews. And Burgard found that self-rated health was significantly lower for respondents who reported feeling insecure about their jobs. Compared to workers who felt secure at both interviews, those who were chronically insecure were about twice as likely to report physical health that was less than very good or excellent. She also found that private-sector employees were more vulnerable to the negative health effects of job insecurity than were public-sector employees. Job insecurity took a particularly high toll on Black workers, the researchers found. Blacks who were chronically insecure about their jobs were nearly three times as likely as insecure whites and more than four times as likely as secure whites to report very high depressive symptoms.