IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v293y2022ics0277953621009746.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Saving Grace? Religious ecology and deaths of despair

Author

Listed:
  • Seto, Christopher

Abstract

Since the late 1990s, deaths related to drug and alcohol abuse and suicide have increased substantially in the United States. Religious ecology is an important community attribute with theoretical links to these “deaths of despair.” This study uses spatial autoregressive models to explore the relationship between religious ecology and deaths of despair, analyzing 2,992 US counties. Analyses focus on the effects of four American religious traditions (Mainline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant, Black Protestant, and Catholic), and how religious ecological effects interact with structural community disadvantage. Mainline Protestantism is protective in communities of low to medium disadvantage, while Black Protestantism is protective at high levels of disadvantage. Catholicism is positively associated with death rate at high levels of disadvantage. These denominational differences are likely linked to social processes of organizational support and norms about alcohol, which vary in efficacy and salience by community disadvantage. Overall, findings highlight the importance of religious ecology to understanding community health and mortality, as well as nuance in where and how religious ecology matters.

Suggested Citation

  • Seto, Christopher, 2022. "Saving Grace? Religious ecology and deaths of despair," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:293:y:2022:i:c:s0277953621009746
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114642
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953621009746
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114642?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. Stein, E.M. & Gennuso, K.P. & Ugboaja, D.C. & Remington, P.L., 2017. "The epidemic of despair among white americans: Trends in the leading causes of premature death, 1999-2015," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 107(10), pages 1541-1547.
    2. Anne Case & Angua Deaton, 2015. "Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century," Working Papers 15078.full.pdf, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Research Program in Development Studies..
    3. Stockdale, Susan E. & Wells, Kenneth B. & Tang, Lingqi & Belin, Thomas R. & Zhang, Lily & Sherbourne, Cathy D., 2007. "The importance of social context: Neighborhood stressors, stress-buffering mechanisms, and alcohol, drug, and mental health disorders," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(9), pages 1867-1881, November.
    4. repec:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2017.303941_0 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Cairns, Joanne-Marie & Graham, Eva & Bambra, Clare, 2017. "Area-level socioeconomic disadvantage and suicidal behaviour in Europe: A systematic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 102-111.
    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. Camacho, Christine & Webb, Roger T. & Bower, Peter & Munford, Luke, 2024. "Risk factors for deaths of despair in England: An ecological study of local authority mortality data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 342(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. Miller, Charlotte E. & Vasan, Ramachandran S., 2021. "The southern rural health and mortality penalty: A review of regional health inequities in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 268(C).
    2. Pinghui Wu, 2022. "Wage Inequality and the Rise in Labor Force Exit: The Case of US Prime-Age Men," Working Papers 22-16, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    3. Boslett, Andrew & Hill, Elaine, 2022. "Mortality during resource booms and busts," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    4. Perry, Seth W & Allison, Stephen & Bastiampillai, Tarun & Wong, Ma-Li & Licinio, Julio & Sharfstein, Steven S. & Wilcox, Holly C., 2019. "Rising US Suicides: Achieving Health Equity," OSF Preprints m5q64, Center for Open Science.
    5. Shannon M. Monnat, 2020. "Trends in U.S. Working-Age non-Hispanic White Mortality: Rural–Urban and Within-Rural Differences," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 39(5), pages 805-834, October.
    6. Elisabet Beseran & Juan M. Pericàs & Lucinda Cash-Gibson & Meritxell Ventura-Cots & Keshia M. Pollack Porter & Joan Benach, 2022. "Deaths of Despair: A Scoping Review on the Social Determinants of Drug Overdose, Alcohol-Related Liver Disease and Suicide," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-18, September.
    7. Glei, Dana A. & Stokes, Andrew & Weinstein, Maxine, 2020. "Changes in mental health, pain, and drug misuse since the mid-1990s: Is there a link?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    8. Cotti, Chad D. & Gordanier, John M. & Ozturk, Orgul D., 2020. "The relationship of opioid prescriptions and the educational performance of children," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    9. David G. Blanchflower & Donn. L. Feir, 2023. "Native Americans’ experience of chronic distress in the USA," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(2), pages 885-909, April.
    10. Snell-Rood, Claire & Carpenter-Song, Elizabeth, 2018. "Depression in a depressed area: Deservingness, mental illness, and treatment in the contemporary rural U.S," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 78-86.
    11. Alexander Cheung & Joseph Marchand & Patricia Mark, 2022. "Loss of Life and Labor Productivity: The Canadian Opioid Crisis," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 703(1), pages 303-323, September.
    12. Wim Naudé, 2016. "Is European Entrepreneurship in Crisis?," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 14(03), pages 03-07, October.
    13. Dow, Wiiliam H & Godoey, Anna & Lowenstein, Christopher A & Reich, Michael, 2019. "Can Economic Policies Reduce Deaths of Despair? Working Paper #104-19," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt14f015df, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    14. van den Berg, Gerard J. & Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & von Hinke, Stephanie & Lindeboom, Maarten & Lissdaniels, Johannes & Sundquist, Jan & Sundquist, Kristina, 2017. "Mortality and the business cycle: Evidence from individual and aggregated data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 61-70.
    15. Wang, Huixia & Wang, Chenggang & Halliday, Timothy J., 2018. "Health and health inequality during the great recession: Evidence from the PSID," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 17-30.
    16. 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).
    17. Aline Bütikofer & René Karadakic & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2021. "Income Inequality and Mortality: A Norwegian Perspective," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(1), pages 193-221, March.
    18. Leila Bengali & Mary C. Daly & Olivia Lofton & Robert G. Valletta, 2021. "The Economic Status of People with Disabilities and Their Families since the Great Recession," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 695(1), pages 123-142, May.
    19. Haan, Peter & Hammerschmid, Anna & Schmieder, Julia, 2019. "Mortality in midlife for subgroups in Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 14.
    20. Ilaria Natali & Mathias Dewatripont & Victor Ginsburgh & Michel Goldman & Patrick Legros, 2023. "Prescription opioids and economic hardship in France," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 24(9), pages 1473-1504, December.

    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:293:y:2022:i:c:s0277953621009746. 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.