POVERTY, INEQUALITY AND THE TREATED INCIDENCE OF FIRST-EPISODE PSYCHOSIS: AN ECOLOGICAL STUDY FROM SOUTH AFRICA (original) (raw)
Inequality: an underacknowledged source of mental illness and distress
British Journal of Psychiatry, 2010
SummaryGreater income inequality is associated with higher prevalence of mental illness and drug misuse in rich societies. There are threefold differences in the proportion of the population suffering from mental illness between more and less equal countries. This relationship is most likely mediated by the impact of inequality on the quality of social relationships and the scale of status differentiation in different societies.
Income inequality and the prevalence of common mental disorders in Britain
The British Journal of Psychiatry, 2001
Background It has been hypothesised that the association between greater income inequality and increased mortality is mediated by poor psychosocial health. Aims To test the hypothesis that individuals in regions of Britain with the highest income inequality have a higher prevalence of the common mental disorders, after adjusting for individual income. Method Cross-sectional survey of 8191 adults aged 16–75 in private households in England, Wales and Scotland. The prevalence of common mental disorders was assessed using the General Health Questionnaire. Results The association between income inequality and prevalence of the common mental disorders varied with individual income level. Among persons with the highest incomes, common mental disorders were more frequent in regions with greater income inequality (as indicated by high Gini coefficient) (adjusted OR 1.31, 95% CI 1.05–1.65; P=0.02). The opposite was true for those with the lowest incomes. Conclusions Income inequality was ass...
Social inequality and common mental disorders
Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria, 2007
OBJECTIVE: To analyze the association between the socioeconomic characteristics of individuals and common mental disorders. METHOD: A cross-sectional survey of a representative sample of the urban population, 14 years and older, in Campinas (Brazil) (n = 515) was conducted using a multipurpose instrument that included the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20) to assess common mental disorders in the previous 3 months. Weighted prevalence of common mental disorders was calculated for each independent variable. Crude and adjusted prevalence ratios were estimated using Poisson regression. RESULTS: The overall prevalence was 17% (95% CI 12.8-22.3), 8.9% in males and 24.4% in females. An inverse association was found between common mental disorders and the socioeconomic characteristics (schooling and employment) even after controlling for all the other variables. Higher common mental disorders prevalence was observed in those with less than 5 years of schooling (PR = 5.5) and unemployed ...
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
Purpose A systematic review was undertaken to determine whether research supports: (i) an association between income inequality and adult mental health when measured at the subnational level, and if so, (ii) in a way that supports the Income Inequality Hypothesis (i.e. between higher inequality and poorer mental health) or the Mixed Neighbourhood Hypothesis (higher inequality and better mental health). Methods Systematic searches of PsycINFO, Medline and Web of Science databases were undertaken from database inception to September 2020. Included studies appeared in English-language, peer-reviewed journals and incorporated measure/s of objective income inequality and adult mental illness. Papers were excluded if they focused on highly specialised population samples. Study quality was assessed using a custom-developed tool and data synthesised using the vote-count method. Results Forty-two studies met criteria for inclusion representing nearly eight million participants and more than ...
Income Inequality Affects the Psychological Health Only of the People Facing Scarcity
Psychological Science, 2018
Following the “status anxiety hypothesis,” the psychological consequences of income inequality should be particularly severe for economically vulnerable individuals. However, oddly, income inequality is often found to affect vulnerable low-income and advantaged high-income groups equally. We argue that economic vulnerability is better captured by a financial scarcity measure and hypothesize that income inequality primarily impairs the psychological health of people facing scarcity. First, repeated cross-sectional international data (WVS: 146,034 participants; 105 country-waves) revealed that the within-country effect of national income inequality on feelings of unhappiness was limited to individuals facing scarcity (≈ 25% of the WVS population). Second, longitudinal national data (SHP: 14,790 participants; 15,595 municipality-years) revealed that the within-life-course effect of local income inequality on psychological health problems was also limited to these individuals (< 10% of the Swiss population). Income inequality by itself may not be a problem for psychological health but rather a catalyst for the consequences of scarcity.
2018
Britain is the most comprehensive and scientifically rigorous survey of its kind ever undertaken. It provides unparalleled detail about deprivation and exclusion among the British population at the close of the twentieth century. It uses a particularly powerful scientific approach to measuring poverty which: § incorporates the views of members of the public, rather than judgments by social scientists, about what are the necessities of life in modern Britain § calculates the levels of deprivation that constitutes poverty using scientific methods rather than arbitrary decisions.
Commentary: Socioeconomic Position and Common Mental Disorders: What Do We Need to Know?
International journal of epidemiology, 2007
Studies of the association between socioeconomic status and mental disorders have a long history and one early example is the 1939 Chicago study conducted by Faris and Dunham.1 These researchers used aggregate data and reported an association between admission for schizophrenia and living in a deprived neighbourhood. Later studies on the association between severe mental disorders and socioeconomic status generally confirmed these early observations.2 The controversy remained on the explanation of this finding with two competing explanations (social causation vs social selection/social drift). There are arguments in favour of both2, although recent epidemiological research has challenged the more traditional social drift hypothesis.3 Common mental disorders is a term mainly used in Britain to denote mild forms of neurotic disorder composed from symptoms of depression and anxiety.4 These are distinguished from the more severe mental disorders. The concept of common mental disorders has proved useful in epidemiological research and is often measured with simple self-reported questionnaires like the 12 item general health questionnaire (GHQ-12) or the mental health index of the short form health survey (SF-36). More specific psychiatric syndromes included in the concept of common mental disorders are major depression and specific anxiety disorders such as panic disorder, social phobia or obsessive compulsive disorder. Operational diagnostic criteria for these more specific diagnoses have been published from WHO (ICD-10) or the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV) and tested in various epidemiological surveys around the world.5,,6 Although there is a high correlation between general measures of psychological distress and more specific psychiatric syndromes, one should not assume that associations elicited with simple scales should apply to more specific syndromes or vice versa.... continued
Purpose: This paper aims to investigate associations between early and recent indicators of socioeconomic inequality and the emergence, persistence and progression of psychotic experiences (PEs) in a longitudinal follow-up of a community-based population.Methods: Households in the metropolitan area of Izmir, Turkey, were contacted in a multistage clustered probability sampling frame, at baseline (T1, n = 4,011) and at 6-year follow-up (T2, n = 2,185). Both at baseline and follow-up, PEs were assessed using Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). The associations between baseline socioeconomic features and follow-up PEs were analysed using logistic regression models. Indicators of social inequality included income, educational level, current socioeconomic status (SES), social insurance, the area resided, ethnicity, parental educational level, and SES at birth.Results: The risk of follow-up incident PEs was significantly higher in lower education, lower SES, and slum-semi...