Depression and Risky Health Behaviors

Abstract

Risky health behaviors are a major source of preventable deaths in the world. I estimate the effect of depression on risky health behaviors at different stages of the life course. To tackle unobservable confounders and reverse causality, I exploit variations in friend and family suicide attempts and a genetic score for depression as instrumental variables. I find that one standard deviation increase in depression leads to a 4% higher probability of having unprotected sex and a 16% higher probability of smoking cigarettes. Depression could promote individuals’ risky health behaviors through altering their risk preferences, noncognitive skills, and perceived social support.