Public health more generally. And to do so ill present what i found initially as somewhat of a confusing puzzle. And that was perhaps best capture inside this old usa today newspaper clipping, but its been repeated a few times in a variety of different outlets. And that is this notion could recession be good for you . The headline confused me at first. I had assumed that during recessionary periods or Peoples Health insurance would be lost, they would stop paying for medications, become depressed, turn to alcohol. And yet this and other news stories were paced on a based on a series of studies that suggested that during recessionary periods such as the Great Depression, unemployment spikes were associated with improvements in Life Expectancy which i found really confusing. What i want to do is present what i would argue one solution to apparent puzzle, and in presenting the solution i think we can gain some insights into why we might be asking some of the wrong questions when we correl