Poor Health,Strain, and Substance Use

Agnew’s general strain theory is widely recognized as one of the most prominent explanations of crime and deviance. Recently, scholars have conceptualized poor health as a type of strain that is related to both offending and substance use. The current research builds on this by examining data from the 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health and focuses on adult respondents. An index of poor health that included eighteen different diseases or conditions that were diagnosed by a doctor in the past year and a more general measure of overall health were created to measure health strain. Results from logistic regression models showed that health strain increased risk of psychological distress and that psychological distress significantly increased the risk of various types of substance use. These findings add to the growing literature on the relationship between poor health and crime/deviance and suggest that more research is needed.