Mental Illness and Poverty: Does One Cause the Other?
It has been a chicken-and-egg question for decades: Does the misery of poverty breed mental illness, or does the burden of mental illness cast people down into poverty? The two clearly tend to go together, but which causes which?
This week, a Massachusetts researcher published possibly the broadest study yet on the question, examining tens of thousands of hospital records statewide to see whether patients who were hospitalized for mental illness then “drifted down” to less affluent ZIP codes.
The study, which followed patients from 1994 through 2000, turned up surprisingly little such downward drift, said the researcher, Christopher G. Hudson, a professor at Salem State College and expert in mental health policy.
So, he said, “the news here is that there is now increasingly strong evidence that socioeconomic status is indeed a very important dimension of mental illness, though obviously not the only dimension.”
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3 Comments to
“Mental Illness and Poverty: Does One Cause the Other?”
Diagnostic criteria for many mental disorders require symptoms to cause significant impairment on the individual’s ability to function in social or work environments. It can be reasoned that an individual with a severe mental health disorder may have difficulties functioning at work which then would lead them down to a path of unemployment and possibly poverty. However, there are a lot of individuals who have severe mental disorders and are still able to hold a job.
I’m laughing at the “burden of mental illness cast people down into poverty”.
Once someone is branded a witch there is no way of proving you are not one.
See “sane in insane places” rosenhan experiment
ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment
Mentally ill people are not all apples - some are pears, some are plums, and some are cherries. Because each individual is unique - even with the same diagnosis - some people will be able to work full time, some people part time, and some people none of the time. There are so many variables in addition to the genetic makeup of the individual. How skilled is their therapist? Does the individual have kind people around them for support? The list goes on.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 11 Mar 2005
