Make sure to catch Dr. Matthew Parbst’s feature on the Journal of Health and Social Behavior podcast. Parbst, who recently graduated from our PhD program, discusses an article co-authored with Professor Blair Wheaton. In their article, “The Effect of Welfare State Policy Spending on the Equalization of Socioeconomic Status Disparities in Mental Health,” the authors use quantitative data to explore the relationship between welfare state spending, socio-economic status (SES), and depression. Investigating both social investment and social protection spending, Parbst and Wheaton discover that, across policy areas, social investment policies targeted earlier in the life course are more impactful on the relationship between SES and population mental health.
Parbst and Wheaton’s full article is currently open access in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.