Poverty Linked to Mental Illness, Risk of Suicide

In a new investigation, experts were able to determine that a clear correlation exists between having a poor socioeconomic status and chances of developing a mental illness, or attempting suicide.

In other words, being poor makes people more likely to develop neural afflictions, and also to attempt to take their own lives. A low socioeconomic status is the fancy name scientists give to being poor.

In the same study, experts also revealed that people who experience a drop in their usual income tend to become more likely to increase their illegal substance use rates. They are also put at higher risk of developing anxiety or mood disorders, the work revealed.

Scientists have tried to tease out this connection in past investigations as well, but thus far their efforts have been largely in vain. The new work managed to succeed where the other teams failed.

“Some studies have found that lower income is associated with mental illness, while other studies have not found this relationship,” explains University of Manitoba expert Jitender Sareen, MD, the author of the new scientific study.

The new work spans 6 years, and encompasses data of 34, 653 adults in the United States. All of the participants were aged 20 or more at the time the study began. Researchers interviewed them twice, once every three years.

Datasets used in the research were collected from the largest longitudinal, population-based mental health survey ever conducted, the US National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions, PsychCentral reports.

“Participants with household income of less than $20,000 per year were at increased risk of incident mood disorders during the three-year follow-up period in comparison with those with income of $70,000 or more per year,” the UM team writes in a new paper detailing the findings.

Full conclusions of the research were published in the April issue of the esteemed medical journal Archives of General Psychiatry. The work is bound to have important public health implications.

“A decrease in household income during the two time points was also associated with an increased risk of incident mood, anxiety, or substance use disorders in comparison with respondents with no change in income,” the team goes on to say.

This study is put in a new light by the fact that the global economic downturn that affected the US starting in 2008 has left many people homeless, unemployed, or with severely diminished wages.

“The findings also suggest that adults with reduction in income are at increased risk of mood and substance use disorders,” the investigators conclude.