Updated November 06, 2005.

Mar 13 2005

It's not clear whether having a low socioeconomic status (SES) leads to depression or whether depression leads a person into poverty. A recent study tried to answer this question by examining a database of 34,000 patients with two or more psychiatric hospitalizations in Massachusetts during 1994-2000. The researchers found that unemployment, poverty and housing unaffordability were correlated with a risk of mental illness.

Author Christopher G. Hudson, Ph.D., is quoted in an APA release as stating that "The poorer one's socioeconomic conditions are, the higher one's risk is for mental disability and psychiatric hospitalization," This was found regardless of what economic hardship or type of mental illness the person suffered.

SES was assessed on the basis of community income, education and occupational status. The study explored "economic stress" as one of several possible explanations for the correlation between SES and mental illness. Economic stress was determined by how much the local income income was below the federal poverty level, the rate of unemployment, and an index of rental housing unaffordability.

The results of this study suggest that SES impacts the development of mental illness directly, as well as indirectly through its association with adverse economic stressful conditions among lower income groups. Mental illness prevention efforts and early intervention strategies should pay special attention to the impacts of unemployment, economic displacement, and housing dislocation (including homelessness).

Reference: "Socioeconomic Status and Mental Illness: Tests of the Social Causation and Selection Hypotheses" Christopher G. Hudson, Ph.D., Salem State College; American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Vol. 75, No. 1.

Full text of the article is available at the APA site.

Last updated 11/5/05