Feeling insecure about your job harms both mental and physical health -- whether you actually lose your job or not. The toll taken by job insecurity can be as great as a serious or life-threatening illness, the study said.

Researchers analyzed information from more than 1,000 men and women, under age 60, who underwent two interviews, about three years apart. About 25 percent of the people in the study reported feeling insecure about their jobs in at least one of the two interviews.

People who said they felt insecure about their jobs had much lower self-rated health. They were about twice as likely to report physical health that was less than very good or excellent than workers who expressed feelings of job security at both interviews.

Private-sector workers were more vulnerable to the negative health effects of job insecurity than public-sector workers.

Job insecurity was especially hard on the well-being of black workers, the study found.

Black workers who felt constantly insecure about their jobs were nearly three times as likely as insecure whites and more than four times as likely as secure whites to report very high levels of depressive symptoms.

The findings suggest that there may be worker health repercussions as the result of current trends in the U.S. labor market, such as outsourcing, downsizing and the increase in nonstandard jobs with reduced hours and benefits.

The study was to be presented April 1 at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America in Los Angeles.

美国密歇根大学最新公布的一项研究结果显示，害怕失去工作的心态给该国上班族的身体健康状况带来了极大的负面影响。

据美国“每日健康新闻”网站4月3日报道，此项研究显示，由于对现有工作缺乏安全感而导致的死亡人数已经可以等同于因严重疾病而死亡的人数。研究涉及的对象为1000余名年龄在60岁以下的男女在职人员，他们先后接受了两次访谈，其中的间隔大约为3年。研究人员对搜集上来的相关信息进行了仔细分析，约有25％的研究对象在这两次访谈中至少有一次表示他们对于能否保住目前的工作而感到忧心忡忡。那些声称自己总是对工作前景没有信心的人往往会对其自身健康状况给出一个较低的评价。与在两次访谈中都表示自己对现有工作充满信心的人相比，前者认为自己的健康状况达不到良好或优秀程度的可能性要高出大约2倍。

尽管在任何地方上班你都会为能否保住现有工作而感到提心吊胆，但研究结果表明，那些在私营部门工作的人要比公营部门的上班族更容易受到由此而带来的对于身体健康的负面影响。通过本次研究人们还发现，这种工作前景上的不安全感对于黑人上班族的身体健康所造成的伤害尤其明显。那些经常感到工作没有保障的黑人员工出现较强抑郁症状的可能性是怀有同样担忧的白人的将近3倍，而与认为自己端着“铁饭碗”的白人相比，这一数字则达到了超过4倍的水平。

该研究报告分析说，造成上班族健康状况出现如此变化的原因或许在于美国劳动力市场眼下日渐流行的几种做法，比如通过外购来获得更多的服务或产品，企业规模缩小以及那种工作时间及福利待遇均大打折扣的非标准就业岗位的大幅度增加等。研究报告已于4月1日被提交给了正在洛杉矶举行的美国人口协会年会。