Out of sight but not out of mind: Home countries' macroeconomic volatilities and immigrants' mental health

Inflation and health: a global scoping review

High levels of economic inflation can adversely affect societies and individuals in many ways. Although numerous studies explore the health implications of macroeconomic factors, systematic investigation of the inflation-health nexus has been scarce. We conducted a comprehensive scoping review mapping the literature on inflation and health. From 8923 screened records, 69 empirical studies were analysed. These studies explored a wide range of health-related risk factors (eg, diet, substance use, stress, and violence) and outcomes (eg, life expectancy, mortality, suicidal behaviour, and mental health) linked to inflation, across diverse contexts and timeframes. The findings suggest a predominantly negative effect of inflation on health, with specific socioeconomic groups facing greater risks. Our Review uncovers notable gaps in the literature, particularly in geographical coverage, methodological approaches, and specific health outcomes. Among global socioeconomic and geopolitical shifts, understanding and mitigating the health effects of inflation is of contemporary relevance and merits thorough academic attention.

Locus of control and the mental health effects of local area crime

RATIONALE

Exposure to local crime can constitute profound and continuing trauma with significant mental health implications. This is true for both victims and others within society who have not been directly victimised. Yet, for most policymakers, understanding what can be done to help victims to improve their level of mental wellbeing, has proved to be extremely challenging.

OBJECTIVE

Our objective is to explore the role of locus of control (LoC), an important personality trait, in helping victims to develop resilience against crime. Specifically, we seek to examine the impact of local area crime rates on the mental health of residents and whether a person's LoC can help build resilience against the negative mental health effects from local area crime.

METHODS

Using 19 waves of longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, covering 15,245 adults between the ages of 21 and 59 years, we employ an empirical strategy that addresses the issue of sorting and endogenous crime-related moving behaviour.

RESULTS

We find that local area crime lowers mental health for residents, and that those who are more internal on LoC are more resilient to the adverse effects of local crime on mental health. Our results also show that social capital, physical activity, perceived safety and neighbourhood satisfaction are mechanisms through which LoC moderates the effect of local crime on mental health.

CONCLUSION

Our findings have important implications for developing policies that seek to address the negative effects of crime. We propose policies that promote building safer communities and fostering social inclusion as ways to reduce the effect of crime on mental health.

Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Home Countries and Immigrants’ Well-Being: New Evidence from Down Under

This article exploits plausibly exogenous changes in macroeconomic conditions across home countries over time and panel individual data to examine the causal impact of home countries’ macroeconomic conditions on immigrants’ well-being in Australia. We present new and robust evidence that immigrants in Australia feel happier when their home countries’ macroeconomic conditions improve, as measured by a higher gross domestic product (GDP) per capita or lower price levels. Controlling for immigrants’ observable and unobservable characteristics, we also find that the positive GDP impact is statistically significant and economically large in size. Furthermore, the GDP and price impact erodes as immigrants age or stay in the host country beyond a certain period of time. Our findings suggest that immigrants in Australia have emotional or altruistic connections to their home countries and appear encouraging for home countries increasingly attempting to convince their diasporas to contribute more to the development of their homelands.

Neighbourhood ethnic diversity and mental health in Australia

We present the first study that empirically examines the effects of neighbourhood ethnic diversity on mental health. Using 16 waves of longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, we find that ethnic diversity is negatively associated with mental health. Our preferred estimates, using lagged ethnic diversity at the state level to instrument for neighbourhood ethnic diversity, suggest that a standard deviation increase in ethnic diversity is associated with a decline of 0.092-0.129 standard deviations in mental health. This result is robust to alternative estimation approaches to addressing endogeneity of ethnic diversity and alternative ways of measuring ethnic diversity and irrespective of whether mental health is measured with the Mental Health Inventory scale or the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10). We further find that ethnic diversity influences mental health through the level of neighbourhood trust. Our findings point to the need to develop policies that promote social inclusion in multicultural societies and build trust between heterogeneous ethnic groups as a vehicle to improve mental health.