Social infrastructure and the prevalence of deaths of despair: The role of concentrated disadvantage

Abstract

This study aims to understand the associations between social infrastructure and deaths of despair (DoD), with special attention to the role of concentrated disadvantage. I assembled a county-level dataset in the United States from various sources. A series of multilevel regression results indicate that (1) social infrastructure is associated with DoD; a higher density of public institutions (e.g., libraries) and religious organizations are associated with a lower prevalence of DoD; and (3) the associations between social infrastructure and DoD vary by concentrated disadvantage in that the protective effects of social infrastructure are observed only in less disadvantaged countries.