Authors: Sheri L Johnson Erik Wibbels Richard Wilkinson
Publish Date: 2015/09/14
Volume: 50, Issue: 12, Pages: 1799-1807
Abstract
A burgeoning literature documents robust links of income inequality with the prevalence of psychological disorders The aim of this paper is to extend this literature by examining the effects of crossnational income inequality on prevalence of psychotic symptomsAnalyses used archival data of representative samples from 50 countries N = 249217 Four types of psychotic symptoms were assessed using the wellvalidated CIDI interview We examined the effects of Standardized World Income Inequality Database SWIID measures of the concentration of income in the top percentile of people and the Gini coefficient of income inequalityIncome inequality was significantly correlated with the national prevalence of hallucinations delusions of thought control and delusional mood and effects withstood control over national indices of per capita income and regime type Findings were also robust to nonparametric bootstrapping
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