بهداشت روانی در بحران سلب حق اقامه دعوی

Current evidence suggests that the rise in home foreclosures that began in 2007 created feelings of stress, vulnerability, and sapped communities of social and economic resources. Minority and low SES communities were more likely to be exposed to predatory lending and hold subprime mortgages, and were the hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. Little research has examined whether and how the foreclosure crisis has undermined population mental health. I use data from 2245 counties in 50 U.S. states to examine whether living in high foreclosure areas is associated with residents' mental health and whether the foreclosure crisis has the potential to exacerbate existing disparities in mental health during the recessionary period. I use county-level data from RealtyTrac and other data sources, and individual-level data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey from 2006 to 2011. I find that – net of time invariant unobserved between-county differences, national time trends, and observed confounders – a rise in a county's foreclosure rate is associated with a decline in residents' mental health. This association is especially pronounced in counties with a high concentration of low SES and minority residents, which supports the perspective that the foreclosure crisis has the potential to exacerbate existing social disparities in mental health.

In 2007, following decades of financial deregulation and increasingly risky borrowing practices, defaults in the subprime mortgage market resulted in the worst economic collapse in the U.S. since the Great Depression. The housing market crash led to a historically unprecedented rise in home foreclosures – from 650,000 in 2007 to a record 2.9 million homes in 2010, when more than 2% of all U.S. homes received a foreclosure notice (RealtyTrac, 2010). However, there is a great deal of variation in the geographic distribution of foreclosures. Some communities escaped relatively unscathed by the crisis, while others were devastated. Because the foreclosure crisis was concentrated in the subprime mortgage market (Immergluck, 2009), low SES and minority communities – who primarily had access to loans with poor terms and high interest rates – bore the brunt of the foreclosure crisis (National Fair Housing Alliance, 2012 and Rugh and Massey, 2010). The massive scope of the foreclosure crisis, as well as its disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities, raises questions about its potential impact on the well-being of the U.S. population. Recent research shows that foreclosure is a devastating stressful life event that undermines mental health. However, little research examines whether foreclosures undermine the mental health of all community members. In this study, I examine how living in high foreclosure localities is associated with residents' mental health. I ask two questions: First, is a rise in the local foreclosure rate associated with changes in individual residents' mental health and wellbeing? And second, does the foreclosure crisis have the potential to exacerbate existing social disparities in well-being? Put differently, is the foreclosure-mental health association larger in disadvantaged areas than in more advantaged areas?