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The effect of online social media use on individual mental health remains contested. This study examines the effect of online social media (Facebook, Twitter and chat) on adult mental health in Indonesia. Instrumental variable analysis was used to address reverse causality issues. Data come from the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS) 2014, which polled 22,423 individuals age 20 years and older in 9987 households and 297 districts in Indonesia. The findings show that social media use harms adult mental health; an increase of one standard deviation in adult use of social media is associated with 9% increase in CES-D score. The effect is robust with respect to an extensive set of individual, household, community and district covariates. The findings suggest that policies offering advice to wise use of online social media are needed to protect adults from the harmful effects of online social media on their mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding individual and contextual factors of happiness and life satisfaction in a low- and middle-income country setting are important in the study of subjective well-being. This study aims to examine individual and contextual factors of happiness and life satisfaction in one of the happiest countries in the world: Indonesia. Data comes from the Indonesian Family Life Survey 2014 (N individual = 31,403; N household = 15,160; N district = 297). Results from a three-level ordered logit model show that factors of happiness and life satisfaction are beyond individual factors. Happiness and life satisfaction are also strongly associated with factors within an individual’s household and at the district government level. Individuals living in households with better economic welfare are happier and more satisfy. Poor health and unemployment have a detrimental effect on happiness and life satisfaction. Individuals living in districts whose governments’ better deliver public services are happier and more satisfy. In contrast, those living in areas with conflict and violence is less happy and satisfy. Individual religiosity and community social capital in the form of indigenous tradition benefit individual happiness and life satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of poverty as an experience of multiple deprivation has been widely acknowledged. In Indonesia, however, poverty assessment has almost exclusively been conducted within the monetary space; even when multidimensionality is admitted, it has always been computed using variants of marginal method that are indifferent to joint deprivation. Applying a novel measurement method that is sensitive to both the incidence and the intensity of multiple deprivation to data from the National Socio-economic Survey (Susenas), this paper investigates the extent and the patterns of multidimensional poverty in Indonesia from 2003 to 2013 ( $$N=7{,}148{,}964$$ ). An Indonesian version of the multidimensional poverty index is constructed by augmenting the existing consumption poverty measure with information on health and education. Results suggest that there was an unambiguous poverty reduction over the last decade at both national and sub-national levels. The data also reveal that progress has been inclusive across population subgroups, although spatial variation remains notable. The new poverty measurement method proves to be easily adaptable to the Indonesian context and could complement the methods currently employed by the Indonesian Statistical Bureau. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Studies on self-rated health outcomes are fraught with problems when individuals' reporting behaviour is systematically biased by demographic, socio-economic, or cultural factors. Analysing the data drawn from the Indonesia Family Life Survey 2007, this paper aims to investigate the extent of differential health reporting behaviour by demographic and socio-economic status among Indonesians aged 40 and older (N = 3735).Methods: Interpersonal heterogeneity in reporting style is identified by asking respondents to rate a number of vignettes that describe varying levels of health status in targeted health domains (mobility, pain, cognition, sleep, depression, and breathing) using the same ordinal response scale that is applied to the self-report health question. A compound hierarchical ordered probit model is fitted to obtain health differences by demographic and socio-economic status. The obtained regression coefficients are then compared to the standard ordered probit model.Results: We find that Indonesians with more education tend to rate a given health status in each domain more negatively than their less-educated counterparts. Allowing for such differential reporting behaviour results in relatively stronger positive education effects.Conclusion: There is a need to correct for differential reporting behaviour using vignettes when analysing self-rated health measures in older adults in Indonesia. Unless such an adjustment is made, the salutary effect of education will be underestimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies of well-being use happiness or health as a single outcome. They either explain happiness in terms of health (and other factors) or conversely explain health in terms of happiness. Moreover, only a few studies include contextual explanations of well-being. This study investigates the individual, regional and national covariations in happiness and health. In doing so, we use multivariate multilevel model to explain happiness and health. We study 47 countries across Europe using the 2008 European Values Study. The problem of missing data has been solved using multilevel multiple imputation. We find that the determinants of both happiness and health are quite similar. At individual, regional and national levels, happiness and health are positively correlated. Being married, being educated, and being affluent are positively associated with being happy and being healthy. Conversely, individual unemployment and regional unemployment rates are negatively associated with happiness and health [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of decentralisation reform on citizen happiness in the context of a developing country remains under-investigated. We study this effect by examining the experience of Indonesia. Data comes from the Indonesian Family Life Survey 2007 which comprises face-to-face interviews with the adult population in Indonesia ( N = 29,024, N = 262). Multilevel analysis is used to examine the effect of fiscal and political decentralisation on citizen happiness, and shows that fiscal decentralisation is significantly associated with citizen happiness, while political decentralisation is not; these are robust to the inclusion of individual and district variables related to happiness. The findings suggest that decentralisation increases the happiness of citizens through the improved capacity of districts to deliver public services, rather than through the improved opportunities of citizens to engage in direct political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate about whether Internet use increases or decreases subjective well-being is growing. However, previous studies rarely explore either this association at the time of financial crisis or the mechanisms by which contextual factors affect well-being. Using the four waves of the European Social Survey 2004-2010, this study examines the association between Internet use and well-being before and during the financial crisis in Europe which started in 2007. To understand how contextual factors explain individual well-being, we use multilevel model. We find that before the crisis, Internet use is not associated with well-being, in contrast with during the period of crisis. Beyond documenting the associations between Internet use and well-being, we find that using the Internet to respond to a situation of unemployment may help individuals for improved well-being. We also find that the density of Internet users in regions across Europe has positive and significant association with well-being. The results suggest that Internet use by individuals and the provision of the Internet access may be beneficial for maintaining well-being especially during the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global ageing poses a substantial economic burden on health and social care costs. Enabling a greater proportion of older people to stay healthy for longer is key to the future sustainability of health, social and economic policy. Frailty and associated decrease in resilience plays a central role in poor health in later life. In this study, we present a population level assessment of the metabolic phenotype associated with frailty. Analysis of serum from 1191 older individuals (aged between 56 and 84 years old) and subsequent longitudinal validation (on 786 subjects) was carried out using liquid and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry metabolomics and stratified across a frailty index designed to quantitatively summarize vulnerability. Through multivariate regression and network modelling and mROC modeling we identified 12 significant metabolites (including three tocotrienols and six carnitines) that differentiate frail and non-frail phenotypes. Our study provides evidence that the dysregulation of carnitine shuttle and vitamin E pathways play a role in the risk of frailty. Risk of age-related chronic disorders and decrease in resilience is associated with ageing. Here the authors analyse the human blood metabolome and identify metabolites associated with frailty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]