Economic change and mental health in an uncontaminated setting

Recent research has suggested that economic change in a community is followed by increases in illness and psychopathology. The data necessary for a test of this hypothesis are often confounded by overlapping political and economic boundaries. The present study uses economic indicators and mental health service first admissions from the State of Hawaii, where the political and economic organizations are coterminous and assumed to be insulated from interacting with other communities by geographic separation. Monthly data from September 1972 through December 1975 were detrended and analyzed by cross-correlation with leads and lags of 1 to 3 months. Measures of economic change which depict upturns and downturns in the economy were found to be predictive of first admissions for a number of population subgroups at lags of 2 and 3 months. The implications of the findings for planners and policy-makers are discussed.