Debt Collection Pressure and Mental Health: Evidence from a Cohort of U.S. Young Adults.

The debt collection industry in the United States has grown in tandem with rising indebtedness. Prior research on debt and mental health mainly treats debt as a resource and liability rather than a power relationship between creditors and debtors. We study the mental health consequences of debt collection pressure using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1997 Cohort (N = 7,236).

Inequality in high-cost borrowing and unemployment insurance generosity in US states during the COVID-19 pandemic.

US consumers may turn to the private market for credit when income and government benefits fall short. The most vulnerable consumers have access only to the highest-cost loans. Prior research on trade-offs of credit with government welfare support cannot distinguish between distinct forms of unsecured credit due to data limitations.

A Faustian Bargain? Rethinking the Role of Debt in Law Students' Career Choices.

Despite the absence of strong empirical evidence to support the relationship, legal scholars have long argued that a model of financing legal education through student debt makes it difficult, if not impossible, for most students to take seriously a career path in Government and Public Interest law (GPI), where salaries are generally lower than private, corporate practice. Drawing from a multi-wave, panel survey of law students, we take advantage of a unique tuition remission intervention that occurred at the founding of UCI Law, resulting in a natural, quasi-experiment. Using OLS regression and an instrumental variables approach, we ask whether law student debt influences the likelihood that students (1) will launch their careers in the GPI and (2) aspire to the GPI sector five years after graduation.

Student Debt and Cardiovascular Disease Risk Among U.S. Adults in Early Mid-Life.

Introduction: Student loan debt has become common for young adults in the U.S. and is correlated with poor physical and mental health.

Trajectories of unsecured debt and health at midlife.

Background: Unsecured debt - debt not tied to an asset - is a financial stressor that undermines health, but prior research has not investigated relationships between group-based trajectories of unsecured debt and pain and disability at midlife.

Methods: US respondents of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth-1979 cohort reported unsecured debt and income between ages 28-40. We used these measures to identify group-based trajectories of unsecured debt and unsecured debt-to-income ratio.

Trajectories of Unsecured Debt across the Life Course and Mental Health at Midlife.

In this paper, we contribute to a growing literature on debt and mental health and ask whether patterns of unsecured debt accumulation and repayment over two decades are associated with depressive symptoms at age 50. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 Cohort and group trajectory models, we have three key findings. First, we find substantial heterogeneity in debt trajectories across the life course.

The Foreclosure Crisis, Community Change, and the Cognitive Health of Older Adults.

Objectives: While home foreclosures are often thought of as a household-level event, the consequences may be far-reaching, and spill over to the broader community. Older adults, in particular, could be affected by the spiral of community changes that result from foreclosures, but we know very little about how the foreclosure crisis is related to older adult health, in particular cognition.

Method: This article uses growth curve models and data from the Health and Retirement Study matched to Census and county-level foreclosure data to examine whether community foreclosures are related to older adults' cognitive health and the mechanisms responsible.

Rising Household Debt and Children's Socioemotional Well-being Trajectories.

Debt is now a substantial aspect of family finances. Yet, research on how household debt is linked with child development has been limited. We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort and hierarchical linear models to estimate associations of amounts and types of parental debt (home, education, auto, unsecured/uncollateralized) with child socioemotional well-being.

Middle-aged death and taxes in the USA: Association of state tax burden and expenditures in 2005 with survival from 2006 to 2015.

Background: Longevity in the United States ranks below most other Western nations despite spending more on healthcare per capita than any other country. Across the world, mortality has been declining, but in the USA the trend toward improvement has stalled in some middle-aged demographic groups. Cross-national studies suggest that social welfare is positively associated with longevity.

Into the Red and Back to the Nest? Student Debt, College Completion, and Returning to the Parental Home among Young Adults.

Rising student debt has sparked concerns about its impact on the transition to adulthood. In this paper, we examine the claim that student debt is leading to a rise in "boomeranging", or returning home, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort and discrete time event history models. We have four findings.

Children with disabilities and trajectories of parents' unsecured debt across the life course.

Prior research shows that having a child with a disability is economically burdensome for parents but we know little about whether this burden extends to unsecured debt. In this study, we examine the link between having a child with a disability that manifests between birth and age 4 and subsequent trajectories in unsecured household debt. We have three key findings.

Young, Black, and (Still) in the Red: Parental Wealth, Race, and Student Loan Debt.

Taking out student loans to assist with the costs of postsecondary schooling in the US has become the norm in recent decades. The debt burden young adults acquire during the higher education process, however, is increasingly stratified with black young adults holding greater debt burden than whites. Using data from the NLSY 1997 cohort, we examine racial differences in student loan debt acquisition and parental net wealth as a predictor contributing to this growing divide.

Parental Debt and Children's Socioemotional Well-being.

Objectives: We estimated associations between total amount of parental debt and of home mortgage, student loan, automobile, and unsecured debt with children's socioemotional well-being.

Methods: We used population-based longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 Cohort and Children of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 Cohort. Our analytic sample consisted of 29 318 child-year observations of 9011 children and their mothers observed annually or biennially from 1986 to 2008.

Flu and Finances: Influenza Outbreaks and Loan Defaults in US Cities, 2004-2012.

Objectives: We examined the association between influenza outbreaks in 83 metropolitan areas and credit card and mortgage defaults, as measured in quarterly zip code-level credit data over the period of 2004 to 2012.

Methods: We used ordinary least squares, fixed effects, and 2-stage least squares instrumental variables regression strategies to examine the relationship between influenza-related Google searches and 30-, 60-, and 90-day credit card and mortgage delinquency rates.

Results: We found that a proxy for influenza outbreaks is associated with a small but statistically significant increase in credit card and mortgage default rates, net of other factors.

Getting sick and falling behind: health and the risk of mortgage default and home foreclosure.

Background: An emerging literature shows that mortgage strain can lead to poor health outcomes, but less work has focused on whether and how health shocks influence mortgage distress. We examine the link between changes in health status and default/foreclosure risk among older middle-aged adults.

Method: We used National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 data and multivariate logistic regression models to examine the relationship between changes in health limitations and chronic conditions across survey waves and risk of mortgage default and foreclosure.

Mental health in the foreclosure crisis.

Current evidence suggests that the rise in home foreclosures that began in 2007 created feelings of stress, vulnerability, and sapped communities of social and economic resources. Minority and low SES communities were more likely to be exposed to predatory lending and hold subprime mortgages, and were the hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. Little research has examined whether and how the foreclosure crisis has undermined population mental health.

Weight change and depression among US young women during the transition to adulthood.

By using data from wave 2 (in 1996) and wave 3 (in 2000-2001) of the US-based National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we investigated the association between young women's body weight and depression during the transition to adulthood. Respondents (n = 5,243) were 13-18 years of age during wave 2 and 19-25 years of age during wave 3. We used Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale scores to classify young women as never depressed, consistently depressed, experiencing depression onset, or experiencing depression recovery from wave 2 to wave 3.

Depressive symptoms and all-cause mortality in a nationally representative longitudinal study with time-varying covariates.

Objective: To examine the relationship between depressive symptoms and all-cause mortality in a longitudinal study with a nationally representative sample. Research has shown that depressive symptoms increase mortality risk, but results have been inconclusive regarding the role of physical health conditions in the relationship. This study asks whether the association between depressive symptoms and mortality exists independent of contemporaneous physical health conditions, is spurious because of prior physical health conditions, or is mediated by later physical health conditions.

THE IMPACT OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT ON DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS DURING THE EARLY OCCUPATIONAL CAREER.

Sexual harassment has been theorized as a stressor with consequences for the physical and mental health of its targets. Though social scientists have documented a negative association between sexual harassment and mental health, few longitudinal studies have investigated the association between sexual harassment and depressive symptoms. Using longitudinal survey data from the Youth Development Study, combined with in-depth interviews, this article draws on Louise Fitzgerald's theoretical framework, stress theory, and the life course perspective to assess the impact of sexual harassment on depressive affect during the early occupational career.

Does intergenerational mobility shape psychological distress? Sorokin revisited.

Drawing from Sorokin's hypothesis that socially mobile individuals are at greater risk of experiencing psychological distress than their non-mobile counterparts, we investigate whether intergenerational occupational mobility influences psychological distress, as measured by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale. Using data for men from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) and Sobel's Diagonal Mobility Models, we find little evidence for Sorokin's hypothesis; mobile individuals are no more likely to be psychologically distressed than their non-mobile counterparts. In fact, one group of mobile men - those who left their farming origins - are actually distressed than the sons who remain as farmers and non-mobile men in higher-ranked social classes.

SynBioSS designer: a web-based tool for the automated generation of kinetic models for synthetic biological constructs.

Modeling tools can play an important role in synthetic biology the same way modeling helps in other engineering disciplines: simulations can quickly probe mechanisms and provide a clear picture of how different components influence the behavior of the whole. We present a brief review of available tools and present SynBioSS Designer. The Synthetic Biology Software Suite (SynBioSS) is used for the generation, storing, retrieval and quantitative simulation of synthetic biological networks.

The image in the mirror and the number on the scale: weight, weight perceptions, and adolescent depressive symptoms.

Double jeopardy and health congruency theories suggest that adolescents' joint experience of their weight and weight perceptions are associated with depressive symptoms, but each theory offers a different prediction about which adolescents are at greatest risk. This study investigates the proposed associations and the applicability of both theoretical perspectives using data from 6,557 male and 6,126 female National Longitudinal Study ofAdolescent Health (Add Health) Wave II participants. Empirically, results indicate that focusing on the intersection of weight and weight perceptions better shows which adolescents are at risk of depressive symptoms than an approach that treats both predictors as independent, unrelated constructs.

Adolescent Weight and Depressive Symptoms: For Whom is Weight a Burden?

Objective: Adolescent weight and depressive symptoms are serious population health concerns in their own right and as they relate to each other. This study asks whether relationships between weight and depressive symptoms vary by sex and race/ethnicity because both shape experiences of weight and psychological distress.

Methods: Results are based on multivariate analyses of National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) data.