Please join the McMaster Institute for Health Equity and the Centre for Advanced Research on Mental Health & Society on Monday, November 4 for our next seminar, presented by Rachel Donnelly, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Vanderbilt University.

Register here for this free event. Light refreshments will be served.

Description:
State policies are important predictors of health and mortality, but how do state policy contexts influence mental health outcomes? This talk advances and tests a theoretical framework that situates the state policy context as a critical determinant of mental health, including the stress processes that impact mental health, in the American context. Using nationally representative survey data from the Household Pulse Survey (2020-2023), we consider how state policy liberalism is associated with probable depression and anxiety in the United States and how state policy liberalism weakens associations between stressors and mental health. This study “structuralizes the stress process” by pointing to the centrality of state policy contexts for mental health outcomes in the United States.