Almost every morning on NPR there is talk of a recession.  Are we headed for a recession?  What will happen if there is a recession?  Are the markets going to fall even further?  What are people thinking about the economic stimulus packages that the government is proposing to avoid a recession?

In a recent talk about her work on risky families,  Shelley Taylor mentioned offhand that this work makes her think about recession in a new way– financial stress can place a major burden on families, which may lead to less supportive environments for children.  Is a pending recession a risk factor for depression and other health problems when children born today grow up?

One of the major findings of Taylor’s work is that the early childhood environment really matters.  The question is no longer about nature versus nurture, but rather about the interaction between an individual’s genes and his or her environment.  For example, in the case of the serotonin transporter gene, having two copies of the short allele, in combination with a negative early family environment, confers increased risk for depression and other problems.  In the context of a rich and nurturant early family environment, however, individuals with the short-short combination may actually do the best.  Researchers have conceptualized this in terms of “sensitivity to the social environment” (individuas with the short-short combo are highly sensitive to the social environment, whereas individuals with long-short or long-long may be less sensitive to the social environment and do pretty well either way).  Another good example is the MAOA gene– individuals who are low in MAOA, and who grow up in abusive contexts tend to have much higher probability of showing aggressive behavior (including violent arrests) than individuals who have high levels of MAOA or who grow up in supportive environments (see: Caspi, McClay, Moffitt, Taylor, & Craig: Role of genotype in the cycle of violence in maltreated Children.  Science. 2002).

Back to the question of a recession and its potential impact on children being born now, we don’t have data supporting or refuting this claim, but I have been thinking about the types of markers that might be able to address this type of question.  There is tons of evidence that socioeconomic status plays a major role in health, morbidity and mortality, but what does this mean for people when their financial position changes?   Will a recession now lead to more depression and health problems 20 years down the line?  Will the threat and stress of a potential recession have similar effects?