Crime and subjective well-being in the countries of the former Soviet Union

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Yevgeniy Goryakin¹  Ai Koyanagi²  Bayard Roberts³  Martin McKee³  Andrew Stickley⁴ 

[1] Health Economics Group, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK;Research and Development Unit, Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu, Fundació Sant Joan de Déu, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain;Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Spain;The Centre for Health and Social Change, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK;The Centre for Health and Social Change, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK;The Stockholm Centre for Health and Social Change (SCOHOST), Södertörn University, 141 89, Huddinge, Sweden;Department of Human Ecology, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan;

关键词: Former Soviet Union;    Crime;    Happiness;    Life satisfaction;    Subjective well-being;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12889-015-2341-x

 received in 2014-12-30, accepted in 2015-09-23,  发布年份 2015

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundCriminal victimisation and subjective well-being have both been linked to health outcomes, although as yet, comparatively little is known about the relationship between these two phenomena. In this study we used data from nine countries of the former Soviet Union (fSU) to examine the association between different types of crime and subjective well-being.MethodsData were obtained from 18,000 individuals aged 18 and above collected during the Health in Times of Transition (HITT) survey in 2010/11 in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Ukraine. Information was obtained on respondents’ experience of crime (violence and theft) and self-reported affective (happiness) and cognitive (life satisfaction) well-being. Ordered probit and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses were undertaken to examine the associations between these variables.ResultsIn pooled country analyses, experiencing violence was associated with significantly lower happiness and life satisfaction. Theft victimisation was associated with significantly reduced life satisfaction but not happiness. Among the individual countries, there was a more pronounced association between violent victimisation and reduced happiness in Kazakhstan and Moldova.ConclusionsThe finding that criminal victimisation is linked to lower levels of subjective well-being highlights the importance of reducing crime in the fSU, and also of having effective support services in place for victims of crime to reduce its detrimental effects on health and well-being.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Stickley et al. 2015