The 2008–2009 Recession and Alcohol Outcomes: Differential Exposure and Vulnerability for Black and Latino Populations

Housing Instability and Alcohol Problems during the 2007–2009 US Recession: the Moderating Role of Perceived Family Support

“…Our findings also shed light on previous literature that has found positive associations between alcohol abuse and both job loss and underemployment. 19,39,40 In our sample, 53.0 % of individuals who reported job loss and 39.0 % who reported reduced work hours/pay also experienced some form of housing instability. In univariate models, both job loss and reduced work hours/pay were strongly associated with experiencing more negative drinking consequences and alcohol dependence symptoms (data not shown).…”

“…Demographic and alcohol history variables were included as key confounders because prior work has indicated that disadvantaged populations may be especially vulnerable to both economic and alcohol-related problems during a recession. 19 Previous research has also linked other recession-related hardships, particularly job loss, to poorer alcohol out-comes. 19,39,40 In light of this, we included other recession-related hardships in our models to help identify the independent role of housing instability in negative alcohol outcomes and to provide insight into how housing loss may be contributing to the associations between job loss and alcohol outcomes noted in other studies.…”

“…These findings contribute to a growing literature which suggests that already-vulnerable populations are at increased risk for housing instability during periods of economic recession. 19,51 Second, housing instability was measured by asking participants whether they or a member of their household experienced housing instability due to the recession. Some participants classified as "lost housing" or "trouble paying the rent/ mortgage" may thus not have experienced housing instability themselves.…”

“…18 In other studies, severe economic loss, defined as losing either one's housing or job, has been associated with higher levels of negative drinking consequences and alcohol dependence. 19,20 Unfortunately, these studies did not assess the independent effects of housing instability and job loss simultaneously, making it difficult to assess the relative impact of each on alcohol problems. Further studies are therefore needed to clarify previous findings, disentangle the effects of housing instability and job loss, and identify moderators which can inform future public health interventions.…”

Coping with Economic Stress: A Test of Deterioration and Stress-Suppressing Models

“…The impact of ethnic minority group membership expresses itself through (a) the differential risk of stress, (b) the variation in the appraisal of stress, and (c) the effect of stress-mediating variables (Aranda & Knight, 1997). Ethnic minority populations are thought to be most affected by economic stress (Lo & Cheng, 2014;Zemore, Mulia, Jones-Webb, Liu, & Schmidt, 2013), largely because of the pronounced disparity in most socioeconomic indicators (e.g., income, net worth, asset ownership) between ethnic minority groups and the white majority. For example, the median household wealth of whites was 13 times black and 10 times Latino households in 2013 (Kochhar & Fry, ISSN: 1945-7774 CC by-NC 4.0 2017 Financial Therapy Association 83 2014).…”