IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v255y2020ics0277953620302446.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Voting patterns, revoking article 50 and antidepressant trends in England following the Brexit referendum

Author

Listed:
  • Liew, Tim
  • Goodwin, Robin
  • Walasek, Lukasz

Abstract

Unexpected social or economic events have been shown to negatively impact mental health and wellbeing. The result of the 2016 Brexit referendum in the UK has been associated with an increase in uncertainty and consequent anxiety. This study analyses antidepressant prescription trends in the 533 constituencies of England in the year before and three years following the referendum. We examine associations between prescription trends and constituency-level voting patterns in the referendum and later support for the March 2019 “Revoke Article 50”, signed by more than 6 million UK citizens. A mixed model analysis revealed the rate of increase in antidepressant prescription trends to be steeper in Leave constituencies and in areas that did not support the petition, after controlling for constituency education, socioeconomic status, median age, total population, and seasonal effects. Proposed interpretations are provided, along with recommendations for future research. Implications for this study include redoubling mental health care service in areas that show significantly higher mental distress following a major political event.

Suggested Citation

  • Liew, Tim & Goodwin, Robin & Walasek, Lukasz, 2020. "Voting patterns, revoking article 50 and antidepressant trends in England following the Brexit referendum," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:255:y:2020:i:c:s0277953620302446
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953620302446
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113025?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nattavudh Powdthavee & Anke C. Plagnol & Paul Frijters & Andrew E. Clark, 2019. "Who Got the Brexit Blues? The Effect of Brexit on Subjective Wellbeing in the UK," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 86(343), pages 471-494, July.
    2. Dhingra, Swati & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I. P. & Sampson, Thomas & Reenen, John Van, 2016. "The consequences of Brexit for UK trade and living standards," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 66144, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Burgard, Sarah A. & Brand, Jennie E. & House, James S., 2009. "Perceived job insecurity and worker health in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(5), pages 777-785, September.
    4. Georgios Kavetsos & Ichiro Kawachi & Ilias Kyriopoulos & Sotiris Vandoros, 2021. "The effect of the Brexit referendum result on subjective well‐being," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 184(2), pages 707-731, April.
    5. Ross, Catherine E. & Mirowsky, John, 2006. "Sex differences in the effect of education on depression: Resource multiplication or resource substitution?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(5), pages 1400-1413, September.
    6. Jofre-Bonet, Mireia & Serra-Sastre, Victoria & Vandoros, Sotiris, 2018. "The impact of the Great Recession on health-related risk factors, behaviour and outcomes in England," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 213-225.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hervy, Charlotte & Cavalli, Nicolo & Madia, Joan E. & Nicodemo, Catia, 2022. "Diverging mental health after Brexit: Evidence from a longitudinal survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 302(C).
    2. Rienzo, Cinzia, 2024. "Trick or treat? The Brexit effect on immigrants’ mental health in the United Kingdom," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hervy, Charlotte & Cavalli, Nicolo & Madia, Joan E. & Nicodemo, Catia, 2022. "Diverging mental health after Brexit: Evidence from a longitudinal survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 302(C).
    2. Ichiro Kawachi & Ilias Kyriopoulos & Sotiris Vandoros, 2023. "Economic uncertainty and cardiovascular disease mortality," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(7), pages 1550-1560, July.
    3. Rienzo, Cinzia, 2024. "Trick or treat? The Brexit effect on immigrants’ mental health in the United Kingdom," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    4. Swati Dhingra & Thomas Sampson, 2022. "Expecting Brexit," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 495-519, August.
    5. Drinkwater, Stephen & Blackaby, David H. & Robinson, Catherine, 2024. "What Mattered Most in the Brexit Vote? Evidence from Detailed Regression and Decomposition Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 16841, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Saville, Christopher W.N., 2020. "Mental health consequences of minority political positions: The case of brexit," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    7. Vandoros, Sotiris & Avendano, Mauricio & Kawachi, Ichiro, 2019. "The association between economic uncertainty and suicide in the short-run," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 403-410.
    8. Hipp, Lena, 2020. "Feeling secure vs. being secure? Qualitative evidence on the relationship between labour market institutions and employees’ perceived job security from Germany and the U.S," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 15(4), pages 416-429.
    9. Fernández Guerrico, Sofía, 2021. "The effects of trade-induced worker displacement on health and mortality in Mexico," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    10. International Monetary Fund, 2016. "United Kingdom: Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2016/169, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Walter Bossert & Andrew E. Clark & Conchita d'Ambrosio & Anthony Lepinteur, 2019. "Economic Insecurity and the Rise of the Right," PSE Working Papers halshs-02325984, HAL.
    12. Annie Tubadji & Thomas Colwill & Don Webber, 2021. "Voting with your feet or voting for Brexit: The tale of those stuck behind," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(2), pages 247-277, April.
    13. Italo A. Gutierrez & Pierre-Carl Michaud, 2017. "Whistle While You Work: Job Insecurity and Older Workers’ Mental Health in the United States," CIRANO Working Papers 2017s-21, CIRANO.
    14. Tapia Granados, José A. & Rodriguez, Javier M., 2015. "Health, economic crisis, and austerity: A comparison of Greece, Finland and Iceland," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(7), pages 941-953.
    15. Avram, Silvia, 2020. "Zero-hours contracts: flexibility or insecurity? Experimental evidence from a low income population," ISER Working Paper Series 2020-10, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    16. Brendan Burchell, 2011. "A Temporal Comparison of the Effects of Unemployment and Job Insecurity on Wellbeing," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 16(1), pages 66-78, February.
    17. Salvatore Nunnari & Jan Zapal, 2017. "A Model of Focusing in Political Choice," Working Papers 599, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    18. Nolan, Anne & Smyth, Emer, 2022. "Disrupted transitions: young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS142.
    19. Jennifer Karas Montez & Kaitlyn Barnes, 2016. "The Benefits of Educational Attainment for U.S. Adult Mortality: Are they Contingent on the Broader Environment?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 35(1), pages 73-100, February.
    20. Pitsoulis, Athanassios & Schwuchow, Soeren, 2018. "Though this be madness: A game-theoretic perspective on the Brexit negotiations," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181635, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:255:y:2020:i:c:s0277953620302446. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.