Abstract
For decades, the question of social selection vs social causation has been raised by public health researchers and social scientists to explain the association between socioeconomic factors and mood disorders.(1,2) The social selection or "downward drift" theory postulates that the disease itself limits an individual's educational and occupational achievements, leading to a lower socioeconomic status (SES). In contrast, the social causation hypothesis suggests that factors associated with low SES (e.g., stressful life events, poor health care access) increase the likelihood of disease onset or prolonged disease duration.(3,4) Simply stated, the end result of each hypothesis is as follows:
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