How Poverty Affects Mental Health

For the first part of this week’s installment of our series Strapped: A Look at Poverty in America, we’re finding out how poverty affects mental health. Epidemiologist Dr. Jane Costello examines the impact poverty has on mental health, especially among children. She tells us about her Great Smoky Mountains Study—a longitudinal study of more than 1,400 children in North Carolina—looking at who gets mental illness, who gets treatment, and how rising out of poverty improves the mental health of children and families. Dr. Costello is Associate Director for Research, Center for Child & Family Policy and Professor of Medical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University.