Psychological distress and problem drinking
Psychological distress and problem drinking
We examine the influence of harmful alcohol use on mental health using a flexible two-step instrumental variables approach and household survey data from nine countries of the former Soviet Union. Using alcohol advertisements to instrument for alcohol, we show that problem drinking has a large detrimental effect on psychological distress, with problem drinkers exhibiting a 42% increase in the number of mental health problems reported and a 15% higher chance of reporting very poor mental health. Ignoring endogeneity leads to an underestimation of the damaging effect of excessive drinking. Findings suggest that more effective alcohol polices and treatment services in the former Soviet Union may have added benefits in terms of reducing poor mental health. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
alcohol abuse, mental health, advertising, instrumental variables, causality
1-20
Mentzakis, Emmanouil
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Roberts, Bayard
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Suhrcke, Marc
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McKee, Martin
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2015
Mentzakis, Emmanouil
c0922185-18c7-49c2-a659-8ee6d89b5d74
Roberts, Bayard
17f6d32f-a15c-416d-805c-c91e83a5627a
Suhrcke, Marc
aec41f37-efdf-43bd-934d-8b2b5df4b5cf
McKee, Martin
00241cff-34ff-4459-9263-c806a14deb6b
Mentzakis, Emmanouil, Roberts, Bayard, Suhrcke, Marc and McKee, Martin
(2015)
Psychological distress and problem drinking.
Health Economics, 38 (3), .
(doi:10.1002/hec.3143).
(PMID:25640167)
Abstract
We examine the influence of harmful alcohol use on mental health using a flexible two-step instrumental variables approach and household survey data from nine countries of the former Soviet Union. Using alcohol advertisements to instrument for alcohol, we show that problem drinking has a large detrimental effect on psychological distress, with problem drinkers exhibiting a 42% increase in the number of mental health problems reported and a 15% higher chance of reporting very poor mental health. Ignoring endogeneity leads to an underestimation of the damaging effect of excessive drinking. Findings suggest that more effective alcohol polices and treatment services in the former Soviet Union may have added benefits in terms of reducing poor mental health. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Text
EMentzakis_et_al_HE.pdf
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 5 December 2014
e-pub ahead of print date: 13 January 2015
Published date: 2015
Keywords:
alcohol abuse, mental health, advertising, instrumental variables, causality
Organisations:
Economics
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 382648
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/382648
ISSN: 1099-1050
PURE UUID: 8dd4285c-f97d-46e5-a4b9-d0e3e06390a9
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Date deposited: 02 Nov 2015 14:56
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:42
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Contributors
Author:
Bayard Roberts
Author:
Marc Suhrcke
Author:
Martin McKee
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