 |
||
|
||
|
||
The notion that poverty and mental illness are intertwined is nothing new, as past research has demonstrated time and again. But finding evidence that one begets the other has often proved difficult.
Now new research that coincided with the opening of a casino may have come a step closer to identifying a link by suggesting that lifting children out of poverty can diminish some psychiatric symptoms, though others seem unaffected. A study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association looked at children before and after their families rose above the poverty level. Rates of deviant and aggressive behaviours, the study noted, declined as incomes rose.
"This comes closer to pointing to a causal relationship than we can usually get," said Dr E Jane Costello, a psychiatric epidemiologist at Duke who was the lead author. "Moving families out of poverty led to a reduction in children's behavioural symptoms."
The study took place over eight years in rural North Carolina and tracked 1,420 children ages 9 to 13. Tests for psychiatric symptoms were given at the start of the study and repeated each year.
When the study began, 68 percent of the children were from families living below the poverty line. On average, the poorer children exhibited more behaviours associated with psychiatric problems than those who did not live in poverty. But midway through the study, the opening of a local casino offered researchers a chance to analyse the effects of quick rises in income.
Just over 14 percent of the American
Indian children rose above the poverty level when the casino started distributing
a percentage of its profits to tribal families. When the researchers conducted
their tests soon after, they noticed that the rate of psychiatric symptoms
among the children who had risen from poverty was dropping. As time went
on, the children were less inclined to stubbornness, temper tantrums, stealing,
bullying and vandalism - all symptoms of conduct and oppositional defiant
disorders.
|
||
|
||
|
||