Social Status and Psychopathology over the Life Course

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed study will examine socioeconomic status (SES) as a risk-factor for psychopathology over the adult life course. The recent NIH call for research in this area (National Institutes of Health 1998) is well-suited for secondary data analysis because much data to address it already exists but has not yet been analyzed from a life-course perspective. The proposed project will use existing data to examine how age conditions the influence of socioeconomic status as a risk factor for the "common mental disorders" of depression, anxiety, and alcohol dependence - the most prevalent mental illnesses. Data for the investigation consist of a long-term follow-up of Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study site in Baltimore (data that is not in the public domain), the National Comorbidity Study, and the Americans' Changing Lives Study. These data encompass both DSM-criteria diagnoses of mental disorders and symptom scales that provide dimensional measures of psychopathology. The proposed analysis centers on two general research questions. First, the analysis will investigate changes in the association between SES indicators and psychopathology across adulthood, from ages 18 to 90. Life course theory and preliminary research lead to the expectation that the associations will increase with age. To test this hypothesis the analysis will use conventional OLS and logistic regressions, as well as Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE). The analysis will examine the extent to which age interacts with SES indicators in the prediction of psychopathology, using both cross-sectional and longitudinal models. Second, the analysis will investigate how the mechanisms linking SES and psychopathology change with age. Using both cross-sectional and longitudinal models, the analysis will examine the extent to which age conditions the association between SES and intervening mechanisms such as physical health, coping resources, and economic strain. In turn, the analysis will also examine ways in which age conditions the association between these mediators and psychopathology.