Living in poverty because of mental health problems or having mental health problems because of poverty?

Poverty and mental illness are not only linked, they are also causal. This is the conclusion reached by researchers from UMC Amsterdam, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Modena. Their research shows that while some mental health problems can hinder financial stability, poverty is also a causal factor leading to mental health problems. The study was published in the journal Nature Human Behavior.

“This research shows that certain mental health problems can make a person’s financial situation uncertain. But, conversely, we also see that poverty can lead to mental health problems.”says Marco Box, a psychiatrist at UMC in Amsterdam.

Previous studies have shown a strong correlation between poverty and mental illness, but separating cause and effect has proven difficult. The effects of mental illness can impact a person’s financial situation, such as being unable to work or having higher health care costs. But difficult economic circumstances can also cause psychological problems..

Complicated relationships

The researchers used data from the UK Biobank and the International Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. “We found that schizophrenia and ADHD causally contribute to poverty. In contrast, poverty contributes to major depressive disorder and schizophrenia. The risk of anorexia nervosa is actually reduced by poverty,” says Box.

First, poverty was measured using household income, occupational income, and social deprivation. The researchers then used the participants’ genetic information, using a technique called Mendelian randomization, to unravel the associations. Mendelian randomization is a method of determining the influence of risk factors on disease by measuring the variations in genes that are most common for certain traits.

“We were able to capture aspects of poverty that are common to the individual, the household and the area in which they live. This allowed us to better determine the causal impact of poverty on mental illness” says David Hill, a statistical geneticist at the University of Edinburgh.

The findings of this study have implications for policy and approaches to both poverty and mental illness. By recognising the mutual influence of poverty and mental health, policymakers can develop more effective interventions to break the cycle of poverty and mental health problems. “The study provides compelling evidence for the need to consider social factors such as poverty when studying the development of mental illness,” says Box.

“Our results show that reducing inequality can lead to significant improvements in the mental health of the population,” adds Mattia Marchi, a psychiatrist at the University of Modena.

“There is often confusion about the use of genetic data to study the relationship between poverty and mental illness. We emphasize that this does not mean that poverty is genetic. On the contrary, using genetic data we were able to identify poverty as a modifiable variable. Environmental Factors for Mental Health“, Box concludes.