Healthy, wealthy, and wise: Incorporating health issues as a source of strain in Agnew's general strain theory

The current study uses Agnew's general strain theory (GST) as a foundation to argue that poor health may lead to delinquency. Those who suffer frequently from minor health problems and lack resources to afford proper medical care are expected to experience elevated levels of health-related strain, negative emotional affect, and report engaging in more delinquent acts. Using longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), negative binomial regression models were estimated and show that health strains increase the subsequent frequency of non-violent delinquency even when controlling for important demographic and theoretically derived variables. Health strain's influence on non-violent delinquency was not conditioned by anger, depression, self-esteem, low constraint, or religiosity. Implications for GST are discussed and a modest research agenda for investigating health strain is identified.

Research Highlights►Using data from waves I and II of the Add Health, elevated levels of health problems had statistically significant influences on subsequent self-reported property offending and general delinquency, regardless of other important demographic and theoretically relevant variables. ►Elevated levels of health problems did not have a statistically significant influence on subsequent self-reported violence ►Health problems among adolescents were concluded to be sources of strain that should be incorporated into Agnew's General Strain Theory. ►Few interactions between health-related strain and coping strategies and health related strain and conditioning factors were found to predict delinquency and offending.