Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

County-Level Determinants of Mental Health, 2002–2008

  • Published:
Social Indicators Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Poor mental health is a concern in the US and world-wide. In this study we examine the effects of socioeconomic and environmental variables on the number of days of poor mental health reported across US counties. The results suggest that educational attainment, employment opportunities including self-employment, and social capital have important benefits in terms of community mental health. Other socio-demographic variables also tend to have predicted effects, as does the amount of sunshine in January, which is our control for Seasonal Affective Disorder. The general conclusion of the study is that living in a non-metro county and adjacent to a metro core, is associated with greater happiness. Mental health days also increase considerably due to natural disasters and they are affected by regional climate variability. For policymakers concerned about reducing the average number of poor mental health days across the nation, our results suggest that reducing poverty is a more powerful strategy than reducing income inequality.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. One empirical difference is that happiness measures range from high to low subjective well-being, whereas poor mental health is truncated in that it ignores extremes at the other end of the scale (i.e., happiness or bliss).

  2. Whether this effect is positive or negative is an empirical question. For some commuters this time is spent transitioning between work and home life, and vice versa, and therefore not necessarily stressful.

  3. In supplemental specification tests not reported here, we also used an ethnic fractionalization measure (Alesina et al. 1999; Montalvo and Reynal-Querol 2005), which was not statistically significant.

  4. The peak age for poor mental health days calculated from the OLS coefficients is 32 years, which is lower than the peak year reported in most studies (i.e., a common value is 44 years). The coefficients on age (linear, quadratic) were jointly insignificant, however.

References

  • Alesina, A., Baqir, R., & Easterly, W. (1999). Public goods and ethnic divisions. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114(4), 1243–1284.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baetschmann, G. (2013). Heterogeneity in the relationship between happiness and age: Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel. German Economic Review,. doi:10.1111/geer.12015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berry, H. L., Bowen, K., & Kjellstrom, T. (2010). Climate change and mental health: a causal pathways framework. International Journal of Public Health, 55(2), 123–132.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berry, H. L., Kelly, B. J., Hanigan, I. C., Coates, J. H., McMichael, A. J., Welsh, J. A., & Kjellstrom, T. (2008). Rural mental health impacts of climate change. Commissioned paper for the Garnaut Climate Change Review (Interim report to the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments of Australia). Melbourne: Garnaut Review Secretariat.

  • Bjørnskov, C. (2008). Social capital and happiness in the United States. Applied Research Quality of Life, 3, 43–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Calvo, R., Arcaya, M., Baum, C.F., Lowe, S.R., Waters, M.C. (2014). Happily ever after? Pre-and-post disaster determinants of happiness among survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Journal of Happiness Studies, doi: 10.1007/s10902-014-9516-5.

  • Clark, A. E., Fritjers, P., & Shields, M. A. (2008). Relative income, happiness, and utility: An explanation for the Easterlin paradox and other puzzles. Journal of Economic Literature, 46(1), 95–144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Di Tella, R., MacCulloch, R. J., & Oswald, A. J. (2003). The macroeconomics of happiness. Review of Economics and Statistics, 85(4), 809–827.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Easterlin, R. A. (1974). Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence. In Paul A. David & Melvin W. Reder (Eds.), Nations and households in economic growth: Essays in honor of Moses Abramovitz (pp. 89–125). New York: Academic Press Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Easterlin, R. A. (1995). Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all? Journal of Economic Behavior and Organizations, 27(1), 35–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Easterlin, R. A. (2005). Feeding the Illusion of growth and happiness: A Reply to Hagerty and Veenhoven. Social Indicators Research, 74(3), 429–443.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, B., Gray, M., & Hunter, B. (2014). The impact of drought on mental health in rural and regional Australia. Social Indicators Research, doi:10.1007/s11205-014-0638-2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Flores, E. C., Carnero, A. M., & Bayer, A. M. (2014). Social capital and chronic post-traumatic stress disorder among survivors of the 2007 earthquake in Pisco, Peru. Social Science and Medicine, 101, 9–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glaeser, E. (2011). Triumph of the city: How our greatest invention makes us richer, smarter, greener, healthier, and happier. New York: Penguin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huppert, F. A., & So, T. T. C. (2013). Flourishing across Europe: Application of a new conceptual framework for defining well-being. Social Indicators Research, 110(3), 837–861.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ivory, V. C., Collings, S. C., Blakely, T., & Dew, K. (2011). When does neighbourhood matter? Multilevel relationships between neighbourhood social fragmentation and mental health. Social Science and Medicine, 72(12), 1993–2002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, G., & Schulhofer-Wohl, S. (2013). Understanding the Long-Run Decline in Interstate Migration, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Research Department, Working Paper 697, 63 pp.

  • Kawachi, I., & Berkman, L. F. (2001). Social ties and mental health. Journal of Urban health, 78(3), 458–467.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Khedun, C. P., & Singh, V. P. (2014). Climate change, water, and health: A review of regional challenges. Water Quality, Exposure and Health, 6(1–2), 7–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kuznets, S. (1955). Economic growth and income inequality. American Economic Review, 45(1), 1–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacKerron, G. (2010). Happiness economics from 35,000 feet. Journal of Economic Surveys, 26(4), 705–735.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mendolia, S. (2014). The impact of husband’s job loss on partners’ mental health. Review of Economics of Household, 12, 277–294.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Montalvo, J. G., & Reynal-Querol, M. (2005). Ethnic diversity and economic development. Journal of Development Economics, 76, 293–323.

  • National Drought Monitor Center. (2014). U.S. Drought Monitor. http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/ Accessed 2 June, 2014.

  • Nieminen, T., Martelin, T., Koskinen, S., Aro, H., Alanen, E., & Hyyppä, M. T. (2010). Social capital as a determinant of self-rated health and psychological well-being. International Journal of Public Health, 55, 531–542.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • OECD. (2011). Sick on the job? Myths and realities about mental health at work. Paris. http://www.oecd.org/els/emp/sickonthejob2011.htm. Accessed 01 June 2014.

  • Osofsky, H. J., Osofsky, J. D., Kronenberg, M., Brennan, A., & Hansel, T. C. (2009). Posttraumatic stress symptoms in children after Hurricane Katrina: Predicting the need for mental health services. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 79, 212–220. doi:10.1037/a0016179.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Partridge, M. D., Rickman, D. S., Olfert, M. R., & Ali, K. (2012). Dwindling U.S. internal migration: Evidence of spatial equilibrium or structural shifts in local labor markets? Regional Science and Urban Economics, 42(1–2), 375–388.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, R. D. (2007). E pluribus unum: Diversity and community in the twenty-first century The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize lecture. Scandinavian Political Studies, 30(2), 137–174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raos, R., & Janus, M. (2011). Examining spatial variations in the prevalence of mental health problems among 5-year-old children in Canada. Social Science and Medicine, 72(3), 383–388.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Riumallo-Herl, C. J., Kawachi, I., & Avendano, M. (2014). Social capital, mental health and biomarkers in Chile: Assessing the effects of social capital in a middle-income country. Social Science and Medicine, 105, 47–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rupasingha, A., & Goetz, S. J. (2007). Social and political forces as determinants of poverty. Journal of Socio-Economics, 36(4), 650–671.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rupasingha, A., Goetz, S. J., & Freshwater, D. (2006). The production of social capital in US counties. Journal of Socio-Economics, 35(1), 83–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shen, Y. (2014). Community building and mental health in mid-life and older life: Evidence from China original research article. Social Science and Medicine, 107, 209–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silver, E., Mulvey, E. P., & Swanson, J. W. (2002). Neighborhood structural characteristics and mental disorder: Faris and Dunham revisited. Social Science and Medicine, 55, 1457–1470.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stevenson, B., & Wolfers, J. (2008). Economic growth and subjective wellbeing: Reassessing the Easterlin paradox. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1, 1–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Symoens, S., Van de Velde, S., Colman, E., & Bracke, P. (2014). Divorce and the multidimensionality of men and women’s mental health: The role of social-relational and socio-economic conditions. Applied Research Quality of Life, 9, 197–214.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tampubolon, G., & Hanandita, W. (2014). Poverty and mental health in Indonesia. Social Science and Medicine, 106, 20–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wen, M., Hawkley, L. C., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2006). Objective and perceived neighborhood environment, individual SES and psychosocial factors, and self-rated health: An analysis of older adults in Cook County, Illinois. Social Science & Medicine, 63(10), 2575–2590.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • World Health Organization. (2011). Impact of economic crises on mental health. WHO Regional Office. http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/134999/e94837.pdf. Accessed 06 June 2014.

Download references

Acknowledgments

This study was supported in part by U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture Grant No. 2012-70002-19385. The usual disclaimer applies. The authors thank Scott Loveridge, Rob Lyerla and Dee Owens for stimulating discussion, but are solely responsible for the content and any opinions expressed.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Economics, Rural Sociology and Education, The Pennsylvania State University, 207-C Armsby, University Park, PA, 16802-5602, USA

    Stephan J. Goetz

  2. Department of Marine Sciences, Texas A&M University at Galveston, OCSB 362, P.O. Box 1675, Galveston, TX, 77553-1675, USA

    Meri Davlasheridze

  3. Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development, National Agricultural and Rural Development Policy Center, The Pennsylvania State University, 7G Armsby Building, University Park, PA, 16802-5602, USA

    Stephan J. Goetz & Yicheol Han

Authors
  1. Stephan J. Goetz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Meri Davlasheridze
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Yicheol Han
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stephan J. Goetz.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Table 4 Description of 2003 rural–urban continuum codes, including number of counties and average population
Full size table
Table 5 The NOAA Climate regions
Full size table
Table 6 Data source for each variable
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Goetz, S.J., Davlasheridze, M. & Han, Y. County-Level Determinants of Mental Health, 2002–2008. Soc Indic Res 124, 657–670 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0792-6

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0792-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation