Influence of Demographic Factors on Mental Health

Impressive Charmander

Author

Israel Davidson (izd3), Declan Little (djl323),
Aimee Tsang (ant46), Simon Lin (sl2758)

Published

May 4, 2023

Topic & Motivation

  • With mental health rates rising across the United States, we wanted to explore a potential relationship between four demographic factors and mental health using data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive’s Mental Health Client-Level Data from 2020.

  • For this topic, we will examine the relationship between client’s demographic data and its potential influence on diagnoses of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and trauma.

  • We plan to conduct inference tests for the following demographic variables: race, education, veteran status, and substance abuse.

Data Description

  • Data was imported from samhsa.gov, using the mental health client level data.

  • It is important to note that the data represents mental health diagnoses during COVID-19.

  • We loaded data from:

    • age, education level, gender, race, state, and substance abuse type

  • The datasets were joined together by mental health disorder and count for specific demographic data.

    • Ex. Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander,Schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders,1921

Data Visualizations

Veteran & Mental Health Analysis

# A tibble: 1 × 1
  p_value
    <dbl>
1       0

\[ H_{0} = p_{veteran} - p_{non-veteran} = 0 \]

\[ H_{A} = p_{veteran} - p_{non-veteran} > 0 \]

  • We reject the null hypothesis
  • Veterans are more prone to be diagnosed with anxiety/depression and trauma/schizophrenia because of the stress of the job

Race & Mental Health Analysis

# A tibble: 1 × 1
  p_value
    <dbl>
1       1

\[ H_{0} = p_{URM} - p_{non-URM} = 0 \]

\[ H_{A} = p_{URM} - p_{non-URM} > 0 \]

  • We fail to reject the null hypothesis
  • There is no statistically significant difference between the proportion of underrepresented minorities and non-underrepresented minorities with anxiety/depression

Conclusions & Future Work

  • Veterans are more prone to be diagnosed with anxiety/depression and trauma/schizophrenia because of the stress of the job. There is no statistically significant difference between the proportion of underrepresented minorities and non-underrepresented minorities with anxiety/depression.

  • In regards to future work, one potential direction of this study could be to explore other factors that may contribute to mental health diagnoses, such as socioeconomic status or employment status. It would also be interesting to examine how mental health outcomes have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic beyond the year 2020. Additionally, machine learning algorithms can be employed to predict mental health outcomes based on demographic and other relevant factors. This could help mental health professionals identify high-risk individuals and provide personalized interventions and treatments.

  • Overall, this study highlights the importance of addressing mental health concerns in various demographic populations. The findings could inform public health policies and interventions aimed at improving mental health outcomes in vulnerable populations.