@article{ref1,
title="Psychological distress and problem drinking",
journal="Health economics",
year="2015",
author="Mentzakis, Emmanouil and Roberts, Bayard and Suhrcke, Marc and McKee, Michael",
volume="25",
number="3",
pages="337-356",
abstract="We examine the influence of harmful alcohol use on mental health using a flexible two-step instrumental variables approach and household survey data from nine countries of the former Soviet Union. Using alcohol advertisements to instrument for alcohol, we show that problem drinking has a large detrimental effect on psychological distress, with problem drinkers exhibiting a 42% increase in the number of mental health problems reported and a 15% higher chance of reporting very poor mental health. Ignoring endogeneity leads to an underestimation of the damaging effect of excessive drinking. <br><br>FINDINGS suggest that more effective alcohol polices and treatment services in the former Soviet Union may have added benefits in terms of reducing poor mental health. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1057-9230",
doi="10.1002/hec.3143",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hec.3143"
}