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Im vorliegenden Beitrag stellt der Autor überblicksartig vor allem anglo-amerikanische Forschungsergebnisse zum Zusammenhang von ökonomischer Rezession und Gesundheit vor. Er beurteilt in einer Meta-Analyse die empirische Evidenz für die Auswirkungen auf psychischen Streß, das Hilfesuchen bei psychischem Streß und unspezifische physische Erkrankungen als sehr überzeugend, jene für entsprechende Effekte in den Bereichen Suizide, Kindesmißhandlungen, Risikoschwangerschaften und -geburten sowie Herz-Kreislauf-Erkrankungen als bislang eher kontrovers. (pmb)

ABSTRACTThis paper reviews the literature reporting a connection between economic change and behavioral disorder. The literature is separated into individual and aggregate based research and the methodological issues raised by each approach are described. The implications of the research findings for illness prevention, remedial services and economic policy making are discussed. The authors argue that the social costs of mobile capital should be accounted and internalized because social justice as well as Economic and Psychological theory assume that an individual should bear the costs of his or her behavior.

A review of literature that reports a connection between economic change & behavioral disorder. The literature is separated into individual & aggregate based research, & the methodological issues raised by each approach are described. The implications of the research findings for illness prevention, remedial services, & economic policy making are discussed. It is argued that the social costs of mobile capital should be determined & internalized, because social justice as well as economic & psychological theory assume that an individual should bear the costs of his or her behavior. Modified HA.

The recent global economic recession has renewed interest in knowing whether a declining economy affects population health. Understanding the extreme case of the Great Depression may inform the current debate as well as theory regarding biological and behavioral adaptations to unwanted economic change. We test the hypothesis, recently suggested in the literature, that period life expectancy at birthimprovedduring the Great Depression. We applied time‐series methods to annual period life expectancy data of the civilian population from eleven European countries. Methods control for trends and other forms of autocorrelation in life expectancy that could induce spurious associations. We cannot reject the null hypothesis that period life expectancy at birth during the Great Depression remained within the interval forecasted from historical values. Additional analyses using an automated, rule‐based methodology also cannot reject the null hypothesis. During the most severe phase of the Great Depression, period life expectancy in eleven European countries generally did not rise above expected levels.

Reference pricing (RP) is an insurance design that can be used to incentivize patients to use low-price settings. While RP is not intended to affect overall utilization, it could unintentionally reduce utilization. We examined whether utilization was reduced when a large employer adopted RP for selected elective surgeries, including inpatient joint replacement surgery and outpatient cataract surgery, colonoscopy, and arthroscopic surgery. Data included a treatment group subject to RP implementation and a comparison group that was not. We applied autoregressive integrated moving average analysis as comparison-population interrupted time-series analysis to determine whether there were procedure reductions following RP implementation. We find no evidence of short-term decreases (within 3 months of RP implementation). However, we find very modest declines of approximately 14 (20%) fewer arthroscopic knee surgeries 6 months after RP implementation and 129 (17.2%) fewer colonoscopies 8 months after RP implementation. There were no declines in the other procedures examined.

Emerging theory and empirical work suggest that the 'Bruce Effect', or the increase in spontaneous abortion observed in non-human species when environments become threatening to offspring survival, may also appear in humans. We argue that, if it does, the effect would appear in the odds of twins among male and female live births. We test the hypothesis, implied by our argument, that the odds of a twin among male infants in Norway fell below, while those among females rose above, expected levels among birth cohorts in gestation in July 2011 when a deranged man murdered 77 Norwegians, including many youths. Results support the hypothesis and imply that the Bruce Effect operates in women to autonomically raise the standard of fetal fitness necessary to extend the gestation of twins. This circumstance has implications for using twins to estimate the relative contributions of genes and environment to human responses to exogenous stimuli.

Mexican Americans report significantly lower rates of major depression than do other Americans. This difference has been attributed to several possible mechanisms, including a cultural immunity to acute stressors. Tested here is the hypothesis that Mexican Americans are reactive to one acute stressor, job loss, that is a demonstrated risk factor for depression in samples of the overall US population. Survey data from a representative sample of 3,012 Mexican Americans living in Fresno County, CA, indicate that job loss is a risk factor for major depression. The inference from previous research that Mexican Americans are less reactive to acute stressors than others in the community is probably incorrect. The relatively low rate of depression among Mexican Americans may be explained by cultural factors that protect against the chronic strains rather than acute stressors. Any public policies or clinical practices that assume Mexican Americans can withstand acute stressors better than other persons should be reviewed in light of these findings. 3 Tables, 32 References. Adapted from the source document.