Politicians have talked endlessly about deficits and finance during our ongoing economic crisis. But we’ve talked far less about achieving another major goal that is just as important, if not more so, than promoting stable financial markets: protecting our health and well-being during hard times and into the future. What policies are most effective in preserving our health during economic recessions—and can we afford them?

That question, it turns out, can be answered through data and careful research on recessions both past and present. My colleague David Stuckler and I are today releasing our peer-reviewed book, entitled The Body Economic, in which we boil down over a century of data from across the globe to answer the question of what policies actually improve both our economies and our public health during and after economic recessions.

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