2025/05/25 by Anupam Das, Ian Hudson, Mark Hudson · 1 voice
Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Employment and Welfare Studies #Canadian Policy and Governance
paper · pdf · doi:10.55016/ojs/jcph.vi.80333
openalex publication_date 2025/05/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
This paper examines one possible, but understudied, institution that might have an impact on health: unionization. We outline four distinct, although complementary, pathways through which unions might influence population health outcomes based on two axes: the levers that unions can potentially pull to influence any policy environment (collective bargaining and political action) and the manner in which health can be influenced in a society (the Social Determinants of Health and health care). We test whether unionization rates have an impact on total, preventable, and treatable mortality using panel data on Canadian provinces between 2000 and 2020. We find that unionization rates are negatively associated with all three measures of mortality.