The Analogous Effects of the Implosion of the Housing Price Bubble Beginning in Mid-2007

This pilot award investigates the health impacts of quality and value collapses in the local housing markets across the United States which began in the spring of 2007. The study evaluates the health impacts of stress as a result of wealth decline, and it explores the health outcomes that followed changes in local conditions (dwindling labor opportunities, neighborhood quality decline, etc.), which may have driven—or been driven by—the price collapses themselves. The housing market debacle profoundly changed the lives of millions of Americans, especially older adults, so information regarding the welfare effects of this seismic change is of central interest to social scientists, historians and policy makers.