Ulf Gerdtham
Professor
Social Assistance and Mental Health: Evidence from Longitudinal Data on Pharmaceutical Consumption
Författare
Summary, in English
This paper examines the short-term effect between take-up of Social Assistance Benefit (SAB) and mental health. Using a panel dataset including rich yearly register data on e.g. income, income sources, unemployment and types of pharmaceutical consumption for over 140,000 Swedes 2006-2012, we quantify the importance of the psychosocial dimensions (e.g. shame and guilt) of the socioeconomic status – mental health nexus. Our main independent variable is an indicator for SAB, which is the means-tested last-resort option for individuals with no other means to cover necessary living expenses, received by six per cent of all Swedish households annually. Mental ill-health is measured by data on prescribed antidepressants, anxiolytics, or hypnotics. While SAB strongly associates with psychopharmaca consumption in a cross-section of observations, the association largely disappear once we introduce individual fixed effects. These results indicate that other mechanisms than shame or guilt related to the SAB experience are more important for mental health in the short term.
Avdelning/ar
- Nationalekonomiska institutionen
- Hälsoekonomi
- Centrum för ekonomisk demografi
- EpiHealth: Epidemiology for Health
Publiceringsår
2018
Språk
Engelska
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Working Papers
Issue
2018:2
Länkar
Dokumenttyp
Working paper
Förlag
Department of Economics, Lund University
Ämne
- Economics
Nyckelord
- mental health
- socio-economic status
- social assistance
- shame
- guilt
- individual fixed effect
- I12
- I14
- I18
Status
Published
Projekt
- Public Management Research
Forskningsgrupp
- Health Economics