{
    "abstract": "Past trauma resulting from personal life shocks, especially during periods of particular volatility such as regime transition (or regime change), can give rise to significant long-lasting effects on people's health and well-being. We study this question by drawing on longitudinal and retrospective data to examine the effect of past exposure to major individual-level shocks (specifically hunger, persecution, dispossession, and exceptional stress) on current measures of an individual's health and mental well-being. We examine the effect of the timing of the personal shocks, alongside the additional effect of 'institutional uncertainty' resulting from regime change in post-communist European countries. Our findings are as follows. First, we document evidence of the detrimental effects of shocks on a series of relevant health and well-being outcomes. Second, we show evidence of more pronounced detrimental consequences of such personal shocks experienced by individuals living in formerly communist countries (which accrue to about 8% and 10% in the case of persecution and hunger, respectively) than in non-communist countries. The effects are robust and take place in addition to the direct effects of regime change and exposure to personal shocks.",
    "authors": [
        {
            "affiliation": "London School of Economics, United Kingdom. Electronic address: J.Costa-Font@lse.ac.uk.",
            "firstname": "Joan",
            "initials": "J",
            "lastname": "Costa-Font"
        },
        {
            "affiliation": "University of Warsaw, Poland. Electronic address: ANicinska@wne.uw.edu.pl.",
            "firstname": "Anna",
            "initials": "A",
            "lastname": "Nici\u0144ska"
        },
        {
            "affiliation": "National Health Service England, United Kingdom. Electronic address: Melcior.Rossello-Roig1@nhs.net.",
            "firstname": "Melcior",
            "initials": "M",
            "lastname": "Rossello Roig"
        }
    ],
    "conclusions": null,
    "copyrights": "Copyright \u00a9 2025 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.",
    "doi": "10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.117975",
    "journal": "Social science & medicine (1982)",
    "keywords": [
        "Health care system",
        "Later life health",
        "Soviet communism",
        "Transition shocks"
    ],
    "methods": null,
    "publication_date": "2025-04-24",
    "pubmed_id": "40273477",
    "results": null,
    "title": "Equal before luck? Well-being consequences of personal deprivation and transition.",
    "xml": "<Element 'PubmedArticle' at 0x788502a36610>"
}