Does Despair Really Kill? A Roadmap for an Evidence-Based Answer.

ABSTRACT: Two seemingly associated demographic trends have generated considerable interest: income stagnation and rising premature mortality from suicides, drug poisoning, and alcoholic liver disease among US non-Hispanic Whites with low education. Economists interpret these population-level trends to indicate that despair induced by financial stressors is a shared pathway to these causes of death. Although we now have the catchy term "deaths of despair," we have yet to study its central empirical claim: that conceptually defined and empirically assessed "despair" is indeed a common pathway to several causes of death. At the level of the person, despair consists of cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and biological domains. Despair can also permeate social relationships, networks, institutions, and co

SUBMITTER: Shanahan L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6506367 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature