ArticleJournal of health and social behavior2025
Debt Collection Pressure and Mental Health: Evidence from a Cohort of U.S. Young Adults.
Article in Journal of health and social behavior, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Debt Trajectories of Divorcing Mothers and Fathers: Divorce as a Dynamic Economic Uncoupling.Research square · 2026Article
- Equity in Neurotoxicity Care in the Era of Cancer Immunotherapy.Seminars in neurology · 2026Article
- A systematic review examining the relationship between debt and the mental health outcomes of anxiety, depression and suicidality within the United States.SSM - population health · 2026Review
- Understanding financial toxicity in cancer care through a social-ecological lens.Current opinion in oncology · 2026Review
- Debt Strain and Child Protective Services Involvement.The Social service review · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The debt collection industry in the United States has grown in tandem with rising indebtedness. Prior research on debt and mental health mainly treats debt as a resource and liability rather than a power relationship between creditors and debtors. We study the mental health consequences of debt collection pressure using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1997 Cohort (N = 7,236). Drawing on stress theory and health power resources theory, we posit collection pressure as a relational stressor that undermines well-being through negative interactions with debt collectors, financial strain, role strain, and stigma. We find that more than one out of every three young adults in this cohort faced debt collection pressure by around age 40, with higher rates among low-income and Black young adults. Individual fixed-effects and lagged dependent variable regression models indicate that debt collection pressure is associated with increased psychological distress, with more severe consequences among low-income young adults.
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Registered trials
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