When the stock market experiences sudden drops, hospital admissions often increase — and mostly due to mental or psychological conditions, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek report.
The report cited a study from two finance professors at the University of California, San Diego. The study documented daily admissions at California hospitals during the course of almost 30 years. According to the authors, when stocks dropped a cumulative 1.5 percent in one day, hospital admissions rose on average 0.26 percent during the next two days. Ultimately, the authors said about 3,700 annual hospitalizations in California were related to equity market losses and added about $650 million per year in healthcare costs.
Many of the admissions were tied to mental conditions and/or stress.
"People get stressed out and anxious and depressed when the stock market performs poorly," Joseph Engelberg, PhD, told Bloomberg. "That may be very obvious, but I think this is the first paper to come along and try to take a good step at quantifying how big that is."
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