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From Feeling Depressed to Getting Diagnosed: Determinants of a Diagnosis of Depression after Experiencing Symptoms

Receiving a formal diagnosis for a depressive disorder is a prerequisite for getting treatment, yet the illness inherently complicates care-seeking. Thus, understanding the process from depression symptoms to diagnosis is crucial. Aims: This study aims to disentangle (1) risk factors for depression symptoms from (2) facilitators and barriers to receiving a diagnosis after experiencing depression symptoms. ...

Cognitive Abilities and Economic Preferences: Evidence from Genetic and Behavioral Data

An influential body of economic literature has consistently shown strong associations between cognitive abilities and economic preferences. However, much of this research has overlooked the potential endogeneity of cognitive abilities - an oversight given that these abilities stem from a series of investment decisions influenced by factors likely correlated with economic preferences. To address...

Experimental Evidence on Panel Conditioning Effects when Increasing the Surveying Frequency in a Probability-Based Online Panel

We investigate panel conditioning effects in a long-running probability-based online panel of the general population through a large-scale experiment conducted in 2020. Our experiment was specifically designed to study the effect of intensifying the surveying frequency for the treatment group (N = 5,598 panel members) during a 16-week corona study while keeping the control group (N = 799 panel members) ...

Measurement Instruments for Fast and Frequent Data Collection during the Early Phase of COVID-19 in Germany: Reflections on the Mannheim Corona Study

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a vast increase in the demand for fast, frequent, and multi-faceted data to study the impact of the pandemic on people’s lives. Existing data collection infrastructures had to be adapted quickly during the early phase of the pandemic to meet this data demand. Our research group contributed to this by conducting the Mannheim Corona Study (MCS), a longitudinal ...

Extended Restrictions to Health Care Entitlements for Refugees: Negative Health Consequences without the Anticipated Savings

Refugees have limited health care entitlements during the asylum process. In February 2024, the maximum length of this exclusion period was increased from 18 to 36 months. This increase may double the actual waiting time, which is currently already more than one year, as data from the Socio-Economic Panel show. This particularly affects refugees with a low level of education and little knowledge of ...

Exploring Contextual Effects of Post-migration Housing Environment on Mental Health of Asylum Seekers and Refugees: A Crosssectional, Population-Based, Multi-Level Analysis in a German Federal State

Asylum seekers and refugees (ASR) in Germany are dispersed quasi-randomly to state provided,collective accommodation centres. We aimed to analyse contextual effects of post-migration housing environment on their mental health. We drew a balanced random sample of 54 from 1 938 accommodation centres with 70 634 ASR in Germany’s 3rd largest federal state. Individual-level data on depression and anxiety ...

Restricted healthcare puts a strain on refugees and society

Loneliness in Germany: Low-Income Earners at Highest Risk of Loneliness

Loneliness poses a serious health risk: Along with negatively impacting life quality, it can even shorten the life span. This Weekly Report investigates loneliness in Germany using Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data from 2021 on loneliness. The analyses highlight the prevalence of three facets of loneliness (aloneness, isolation, exclusion) as well as regional differences and high-risk groups. The results ...

Working Longer: The Effects of a Higher Retirement Age on Work-Related Health Investments During the Working Life

Health investments are vital for maintaining physical and mental well-being throughout working life, and their importance is amplified with rising retirement ages due to demographic aging. This is the first study to examine if a longer working life causally increases institutionalized health investments. We explore the impact of a German pension reform that raised the retirement age by three years...

Moral Bandwidth and Environmental Concerns During a Public Health Crisis: Evidence from Germany

Did the COVID-19 pandemic crowd out environmental concerns, as one might expect if ‘‘pools of worry’’ were finite or ‘‘moral bandwidth’’ was limited? We use Chancellor Angela Merkel’saddress to the German nation on 18 March 2020 as the threshold in a regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) to evaluate the effects of an increase in COVID-based economic and health concerns on the climate and environmental ...