Economic crises: some thoughts on why, when and where they (might) matter for health--a tale of three countries.

Economic crises can have important effects on a wide variety of determinants of individual and population health, and these effects may be played out over the life course. However, social and economic policies have the potential to mitigate at least some of the potential negative health effects of economic crises, and the substantial variation in these policies across countries suggests that the impact of economic crises may vary between countries. We know much less about this than we need to. Only with expanded efforts to provide a true accounting of the health costs of economic crises, and of the ways in which social and economic policies can reduce these costs, can we prepare ourselves to protect population health when the next economic crises happen, which they surely will.