Welfare participation and depression among youth in the United States: A systematic review

Shiyou Wu, Qi Wu, Mark W. Fraser, Mimi V. Chapman and Qin Gao

Children and Youth Services Review, 2018, vol. 94, issue C, 354-367

Abstract: Welfare programs play important roles in the lives of vulnerable populations. However, since their inception, welfare programs have been accompanied by contentious debate about their impact on the wellbeing of participants and, hence, about their collective value as a strategy for alleviating poverty. This study uses welfare participation as a marker of lower socioeconomic status to identify and synthesize the relationship between welfare participation and depression among youth. A systematic review was undertaken based on literature published between 1997 and 2017 through a search of 9 electronic databases, 15 reports met criteria for study inclusion. Four descriptive studies reported mixed findings. Of the 11 comparison studies, 10 studies showed consistent findings that participation in welfare programs was associated with a higher vulnerability for depression. Discussion includes the effects of stigma related to welfare and mental health treatment, and the implications for policy makers, social workers, and future research.

Keywords: Welfare participation; Welfare programs; Depression; Youth; Systematic review (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740918300409
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:94:y:2018:i:c:p:354-367

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.09.018

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().