Despite very low education and income levels, Mexican Americans had lower rates of lifetime psychiatric disorders compared with rates reported for the US population by the National Comorbidity Survey. Psychiatric morbidity among Mexican Americans is primarily influenced by cultural variance rather than socioeconomic status or urban vs rural residence.

The recent recession and lingering high unemployment will likely lead to a burst of research studying the health effects of economic decline. We aim to inform that work by summarizing empirical research concerned with those effects. We separate the studies into groups defined by questions asked, mechanisms invoked, and outcomes studied. We conclude that although much research shows that undesirable job and financial experiences increase the risk of psychological and behavioral disorder, many other suspected associations remain poorly studied or unsupported. The intuition that mortality increases when the economy declines, for example, appears wrong. We note that the research informs public health programming by identifying risk factors, such as job loss, made more frequent by economic decline. The promise that the research would identify health costs and benefits of economic policy choices, however, remains unfulfilled and will likely remain so without stronger theory and greater methodological agreement.

Immigrants are unlikely to use mental health services, even when they have a recent disorder, but may use general practitioners, which raises questions about the appropriateness, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness of mental health care for this population. Several competing hypotheses about the reasons for low utilization of services need to be examined in future research.

Studies that have found an association between unemployment and psychological depression often fail to establish the direction of causal influence. Analyses of Epidemiologic Catchment Area panel data revealed that of employed respondents not diagnosed with major depression at first interview, those who became unemployed had over twice the risk of increased depressive symptoms and of becoming clinically depressed as those who continued employed. Although the increase in symptoms was statistically significant, the effect on clinical depression was not, possibly because of the low power of the test. The reverse causal path from clinical depression at Time 1 to becoming unemployed by Time 2 was not supported. The unemployment rate in the respondent's community at time of interview was not related directly to psychological depression but appeared associated indirectly with depression via its impact on the risk of becoming unemployed. Implications for policy and further research were discussed.

Our findings support the male fetal loss explanation of the association between exogenous population shocks and the secondary sex ratio.

This first direct test supports the hypothesis that economic decline reduces the human sex ratio.

The events of September 11, 2001 in NYC were associated with immediate increases in births <2,000 g, slightly delayed decreased preterm delivery, and delayed increases in LBW among infants exposed periconception or in the first two trimesters. Stress may contribute to observed associations.

Key Points Question Did preterm births increase among Latina women who were pregnant during the 2016 US presidential election? Findings This population-based study used an interrupted time series design to assess 32.9 million live births and found that the number of preterm births among Latina women increased above expected levels after the election. Meaning The 2016 presidential election may have been associated with adverse health outcomes of Latina women and their newborns.