IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v58y2004i3p565-575.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of US state income inequality and alcohol policies on symptoms of depression and alcohol dependence

Author

Listed:
  • Henderson, Claire
  • Liu, Xinhua
  • Diez Roux, Ana V.
  • Link, Bruce G.
  • Hasin, Deborah

Abstract

Mental health is likely to be influenced by contextual variables that emerge only at the level of the group. We studied the effect of two such group-level variables, within-state income inequality and alcohol tax policy, on symptoms of current depression and alcohol dependence in a US national sample, controlling for state-level and individual characteristics. A cross-sectional US national probability sample provided the individual-level data. State income data were obtained from the 1990 US census. The Gini coefficient (raw and adjusted) indicated income inequality. Outcome measures included current symptoms of depression and alcohol dependence. Controlling for individual-level variables and state median income, the odds of depressive symptoms was not positively associated with state income inequality. Controlling for individual-level variables, state median income and alcohol distribution method, a weak negative association between Gini and alcohol dependence was observed in women, but this association disappeared after additional adjustment for beer tax. No association was observed in men. Higher state beer tax was significantly associated with lower prevalence of alcohol dependence symptoms for both men and women. The results suggest that state income inequality does not increase the experience of alcohol dependence or depression symptoms. However, evidence was found for a protective effect of increased beer taxation against alcohol dependence symptoms, suggesting the need to further consider the impact of alcohol policies on alcohol use disorders.

Suggested Citation

  • Henderson, Claire & Liu, Xinhua & Diez Roux, Ana V. & Link, Bruce G. & Hasin, Deborah, 2004. "The effects of US state income inequality and alcohol policies on symptoms of depression and alcohol dependence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 565-575, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:58:y:2004:i:3:p:565-575
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(03)00228-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Heikki Hiilamo, 2014. "Is Income Inequality ‘Toxic for Mental Health’? An Ecological Study on Municipal Level Risk Factors for Depression," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-8, March.
    2. Hossein Zare & Nicholas S. Meyerson & Chineze Adania Nwankwo & Roland J. Thorpe, 2022. "How Income and Income Inequality Drive Depressive Symptoms in U.S. Adults, Does Sex Matter: 2005–2016," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-15, May.
    3. Godoy, Ricardo A. & Reyes-García, Victoria & McDade, Thomas & Huanca, Tomás & Leonard, William R. & Tanner, Susan & Vadez, Vincent, 2006. "Does village inequality in modern income harm the psyche? Anger, fear, sadness, and alcohol consumption in a pre-industrial society," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 359-372, July.
    4. Jirapramukpitak, Tawanchai & Abas, Melanie & Tangchonlatip, Kanchana & Punpuing, Sureeporn, 2014. "The effect of asset-based wealth inequality on problem drinking among rural Thai elders: A prospective population-based cohort study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 107-114.
    5. Roman Pabayo & Daniel M. Cook & Gregory Farmer & Beth E. Molnar, 2021. "Neighborhood Income Inequality and Alcohol Use among Adolescents in Boston, Massachusetts," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-13, August.
    6. Saloni Dev & Daniel Kim, 2020. "State-Level Income Inequality and County-Level Social Capital in Relation to Individual-Level Depression in Middle-Aged Adults: A Lagged Multilevel Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-12, July.
    7. Wilkinson, Richard G & Pickett, Kate E., 2006. "Income inequality and population health: A review and explanation of the evidence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(7), pages 1768-1784, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:58:y:2004:i:3:p:565-575. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.