{"doi":"10.3390/ijerph21020157","title":"Stress Due to Inflation: Changes over Time, Correlates, and Coping Strategies among Working-Age Adults in the United States","abstract":"BACKGROUND: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual US inflation rate increased from 1.2% in July 2020 to 8% in July 2022. It has since declined to 3.4% (December 2023). This study examined the prevalence of stress due to inflation during a period when it declined from 8.2% in September 2022 to 3% in June 2023 and its association with demographic and social determinants of health (SDOH). METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of the online Household Pulse Survey (HPS), which surveils the experiences of US households. Beginning September 2022, HPS initiated data collection on \"stress due to inflation\" through a question on how stressful the increase in prices in the last 2 months has been. Participants could respond: very, moderately, a little, or not stressful. We analyzed data on working-age adults (18-64 years) who responded to the above question of stress due to inflation during 14-26 September 2022 (N = 32,579) and 7-19 June 2023 (N = 36,229). We used replicate weights in chi-squared tests and ordinal logistic regression analyses controlling for gender, age, race and ethnicity, COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccination, health insurance, and SDOH, including education, lost employment income, poverty status, marital status, food affordability, and region. RESULTS: The prevalence of stress due to inflation (price increases being very or moderately stressful) significantly increased from 76.9% in September 2022 to 78.9% in June 2023. The odds of stress due to inflation were higher for individuals with the following characteristics: female, transgender, having income below 400% of the federal poverty line, having lost employment income, not being able to afford food, had long or acute COVID-19, and did not have a COVID-19 vaccine. CONCLUSIONS: More than three quarters of working-age adults in the US experienced stress due to inflation. Despite a declining national inflation rate in recent months, stress due to inflation has significantly increased among working-age adults. Inflation-related stress warrants further research and policy attention.","journal":"International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health","year":2024,"id":434725,"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":12,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9594,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":433822,"name":"Chan Shen","orcid":"0000-0001-5463-3872","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1241980,"name":"Jahnavi Pinnamraju","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":389837,"name":"R. Constance Wiener","orcid":"0000-0003-0371-6699","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":670616,"name":"Hao Wang","orcid":"0000-0002-5105-0951","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1132461,"name":"Mona Pathak","orcid":"0000-0002-2103-9890","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":389838,"name":"Patricia A. Findley","orcid":"0000-0001-6924-8248","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":389841,"name":"Usha Sambamoorthi","orcid":"0000-0001-8311-1360","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":369132,"name":"Sophie Mitra","orcid":"0000-0001-7283-6630","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":26,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:59:58.582186Z","pmid":"38397647","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":[]}