Scheve A, Bandawe C, Kohler HP, Kohler IV. Mental health and life-course shocks in a low-income country: Evidence from Malawi.
SSM Popul Health 2022;
19:101098. [PMID:
35711726 PMCID:
PMC9194642 DOI:
10.1016/j.ssmph.2022.101098]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/19/2022] [Revised: 03/31/2022] [Accepted: 04/12/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Economic insecurity has been widely hypothesized to be an important determinant of mental health, but this relationship has not been well-documented in low-income countries. Using data from the Mature Adults Cohort of the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health (MLSFH-MAC), we investigate the association of negative economic shocks with mental health outcomes such as depression and anxiety among adults aged 45+ years living in a low-income country. Using fixed effects estimates that control for time-invariant unobserved individual heterogeneity, we find that increased economic instability caused by events such as death of a family member, yield loss, or income loss is positively associated with worse mental health outcomes as measured by the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 instruments. Our results suggest that costly economic events are a key component to worsening mental health in settings characterized by pervasive poverty and underscore the importance of mental health as a public health and development target.
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