Faculty of Law, Politics and Economics, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan.
Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Soc Sci Med. 2019 Oct;238:112460. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112460. Epub 2019 Aug 1.
This paper contributes to two strands of literature: disaster literature on post-disaster mental health and economics literature on migration. Remittances are a sizable source of income in many developing countries. Evidence suggests, however, that when adults migrate in order to support their families via remittances, family members left behind often experience poorer physical and mental health. We study the effects of remittances on the mental health of victims of a disaster, the earthquake (EQ) that hit Nepal in 2015. We used three waves of data from 335 individuals in 6 villages in Western Nepal in which emigration is prevalent. The first wave of the survey was conducted one year before the 2015 EQ. In the third wave, which was conducted one year after the EQ, the respondents aged 15 and older were assessed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms. PTSD symptoms were evaluated by the 17-item Checklist Civilian (PCL-C), and depressive symptoms were measured by the 20-question Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scales (CESD) questionnaire. In order to avoid capturing the impacts of remittances for daily expenses and reduce possible endogeneity in the remittance variables, we measured the change in remittances following the EQ. After controlling for pre-disaster body-mass index and asset holdings, we found that the increase in remittances sent to HHs reduced psychological distress measured by the PTSD and depression severity scores. The remittance variables, however, did not alleviate mental disorder as defined by the international-standard cutoff points of PCL-C and CES-D.
灾难后心理健康方面的文献和移民方面的经济学文献。在许多发展中国家，侨汇是相当大的收入来源。然而，有证据表明，当成年人为了通过汇款来支持家庭而移民时，留下的家庭成员往往会经历更差的身心健康。我们研究了汇款对灾难受害者心理健康的影响，这场灾难是 2015 年尼泊尔发生的地震（EQ）。我们使用了来自尼泊尔西部 6 个村庄的 335 个人的三波数据，这些村庄普遍存在移民现象。调查的第一波是在 2015 年 EQ 发生前一年进行的。在第三波调查中，即在 EQ 发生一年后，对年龄在 15 岁及以上的受访者进行创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）和抑郁症状评估。PTSD 症状通过 17 项平民检查表（PCL-C）进行评估，抑郁症状通过 20 项流行病学研究抑郁量表（CESD）问卷进行测量。为了避免捕捉到汇款用于日常开支的影响，并减少汇款变量中的可能内生性，我们衡量了 EQ 后汇款的变化。在控制了灾前体重指数和资产持有量后，我们发现，寄给家庭的汇款增加减轻了 PTSD 和抑郁严重程度得分所衡量的心理困扰。然而，汇款变量并没有减轻根据 PCL-C 和 CES-D 的国际标准截断点定义的精神障碍。
