{"doi":"10.1016/j.ssmph.2025.101871","title":"The influence of negative wealth shock on depressive symptoms and major depressive episode among older adults","abstract":"A negative wealth shock (i.e., a sudden large loss in wealth) represents a stressful life event that threatens older adults’ mental health. This study examines whether a negative wealth shock is associated with both 12-month major depressive episodes and 1-week depressive symptoms over time among older adults, compared to positive wealth without a shock. This study also examines whether baseline net worth moderates the association between a negative wealth shock and depressive symptoms. The study utilized a national sample of 15,660 individuals from six waves of the Health and Retirement Study (2008 to 2018). We estimated mixed-effects models based on respondents’ self-reported wealth and depressive symptoms. A negative wealth shock was defined as a loss of 75% in total wealth compared to the previous wave. We applied inverse probability weighting to account for potential selection bias. A negative wealth shock was associated with 1.30 times higher odds of having major depressive episodes compared to positive wealth. Both a negative wealth shock (incidence rate ratio [IRR] = 1.30, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 1.06 – 1.60) and baseline negative wealth (IRR = 1.05, 95% CI: 1.01 – 1.09) were associated with a higher rate of depressive symptoms compared to positive wealth. No interaction effects between baseline net worth and a negative wealth shock on depressive symptoms were observed. A negative wealth shock in mid-to-late life has detrimental effects on both 12-month and past-week depressive symptoms, providing implications for mental health programs for older adults at financial risk. • A negative wealth shock is associated with both 12-month major depressive episodes and past-week depressive symptoms. • Zero/negative wealth at baseline is linked to past-week depressive symptoms, but not related to major depressive episodes. • No interaction effects between baseline net worth and a negative wealth shock are observed on both major depressive episodes and depressive symptoms.","journal":"SSM - Population Health","year":2025,"id":577588,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9586,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":754725,"name":"Jiao Yu","orcid":"0000-0001-9876-7928","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":430018,"name":"Belinda L. Needham","orcid":"0000-0001-5939-2027","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":318378,"name":"Stéphanie Robert","orcid":"0000-0002-0013-3239","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":765806,"name":"Weidi Qin","orcid":"0000-0002-3404-5499","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":55,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:58:16.148027Z","pmid":"41142652","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}