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Unemployment has the same adverse effect on a person's health as smoking 200 cigarettes a day, a university professor has claimed.

Speaking at the Protection Review, Professor Mansel Aylward said suicide among young men increased by 40 times if they were out of work for more than six months and that the health risk and life expectancy of these individuals is greater than many killer diseases.

Professor Aylward, director of the Unum centre for psychosocial and disability research at Cardiff University, said beliefs influence perceptions, expectations, emotions, coping strategies, motivation and uncertainty.

He said: "Psychosocial illness, sickness and incapacity are psychosocial rather than biological and more and better healthcare is not the answer.

"We spend too much time focusing on the medical aspect of illness and disease when it is the psychological and social atmosphere that predicts if people are going to suffer from illness. More and better health care is not the answer to getting people back to work.

"This is why rehabilitation does not work when it purely focuses on the medical aspects. Those in the insurance world do not have as important a role as employers, however they are a very important part of that jigsaw"

He concluded that there was a need for better health literacy among the general public so they could better understand the main issues.

He said: "People had a moral obligation to work and there was a need for better health literacy so consumers know how to deal with any problems arising."