Corporate Crime and Mental Health: A Public Health Perspective

Abstract

Corporate crime is a widespread societal issue that causes significant physical, emotional, and financial harm. Despite its prevalence, research examining its effects from a public health perspective remains limited. This viewpoint paper, informed by a systematic review, examines the relationship between corporate crime and mental health, highlighting potential associations and methodological gaps. Evidence from OECD countries identified only two empirical studies, both conducted in Spain, both focusing on financial fraud, leaving other forms of corporate wrongdoing largely underexplored. The discussion is guided by a conceptual framework linking corporate financial violations to mental health outcomes, integrating stress theory, social determinants of health, and bidirectional pathways in which mental health may also influence corporate crime. The paper outlines a research agenda for public health researchers, addressing priority populations, study designs, measurement approaches, and policy implications. By bridging criminology and public health perspectives, this approach offers both theoretical insight and practical guidance for understanding and mitigating the mental health impacts of corporate crime. This framework constitutes the paper’s primary conceptual contribution by explicitly integrating criminological and public health perspectives into a multi-level and bidirectional model that has not been systematically articulated in prior literature. Rather than providing generalisable OECD-wide evidence, the paper highlights a substantial empirical gap within OECD settings and identifies key directions for future research.

1. Introduction

In recent years, corporate crime (CC) has become a persistent societal concern, frequently appearing in news and public discourse [1]. For instance, the Global Organized Crime Index report for 2023 found that CC/financial crimes were the most pervasive illicit economy globally, with all regions experiencing an increase [2]. CC involves unlawful or unethical acts by corporations or their representatives, typically to generate financial gain, improve organizational performance, or maintain competitive advantage [3,4,5]. For the purposes of this viewpoint paper, the empirical discussion focuses primarily on corporate financial crime, while the broader conceptual framework considers how other forms of corporate crime, including other white-collar offences [6,7,8,9], may operate through distinct yet related mechanisms.

Corporate crime has long-term societal effects, damaging political, economic, and social structures and potentially contributing indirectly to other crime types [3,10,11,12]. Its harms are diffuse, systemic, and challenging to quantify, including physical, emotional, and financial consequences for individuals, communities, and ecosystems [11,13,14,15,16,17,18].

From a public health perspective, these harms can be conceptualized using stress theory, which links exposure to harmful events to psychological and physiological strain, and social determinants of health, recognizing that socioeconomic and environmental conditions shape population health outcomes [19]. Corporate crime may therefore act as a structural risk factor, influencing both individual and population-level mental health patterns.

While prior research has examined the harms of white-collar and corporate crime, these discussions have rarely been integrated within a public health framework that systematically links types of corporate crime to mental health outcomes across levels of analysis. This paper advances the literature by proposing a structured conceptual model that specifies pathways, distinguishes mechanisms across crime types, and incorporates bidirectional relationships between mental health and corporate offending. Despite these implications, research on mental health outcomes of corporate crime is limited. Some studies highlight emotional harms such as stress, anger, fear, loss of trust, and revictimization [20,21,22,23], but systematic investigation of mental health consequences remains scarce. Where evidence exists, it primarily concerns financial fraud, showing associations with anxiety, depression, low self-confidence, psychosomatic symptoms, and reduced quality of life [23,24,25,26,27].

Given this gap, this viewpoint aims to stimulate discussion on the relationship between corporate crime (CC) and mental health outcomes using evidence from OECD countries, highlighting key methodological limitations; develop a conceptual framework outlining CC mechanisms of harm and bidirectional mental health pathways; and propose a research agenda offering practical guidance for public health researchers, including priority populations, study designs, measurement approaches, and policy implications.

2. Conceptual Framework

Corporate crime can affect mental health through multiple pathways, which vary according to the type of offence. Financial crimes, for instance, often lead to financial stress, anxiety, depression, and a loss of trust in institutions or organisations [23,24,25,26,27,28]. Chronic exposure to financial insecurity and stress can trigger both psychological and physiological strain, as documented in stress theory [28,29,30,31,32,33]. Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind that it is important to accurately map the mechanisms linking different forms of corporate crime to mental health outcomes. Mental health may also serve as a potential antecedent to corporate crime. Certain conditions, including personality disorders, impulse control disorders, gambling-related disorders, substance use disorders, and mood disorders, can impair judgment, reduce empathy, increase impulsivity, or foster a sense of entitlement, thereby elevating the likelihood of engaging in corporate crimes [34,35]. This bidirectional perspective underscores that corporate crime and mental health can influence one another in complex ways, with outcomes and risks reinforcing each other over time. This framework is further informed by public health theory. Stress theory emphasises that exposure to harmful events produces psychological and physiological strain, while the social determinants of health perspective highlights that socioeconomic, occupational, and environmental conditions shape health outcomes at both individual and population levels [18,19,28,29,30,31,32,33]. Material deprivation, psychosocial pressures, and behavioural factors intersect with corporate crime exposures, influencing the severity and type of mental health consequences experienced. By integrating these perspectives, the framework maps macro-, meso-, and micro-level pathways from corporate crime to mental health, capturing systemic impacts, crime-specific mechanisms, and bidirectional effects. It provides a comprehensive structure for understanding how different forms of corporate crime influence mental health and offers a foundation for subsequent empirical investigation and public health interventions. What is novel in this framework is not the identification of individual mechanisms but their integration into a coherent multi-level structure that explicitly links (i) different categories of corporate crime to (ii) distinct mental health pathways, while also (iii) incorporating feedback effects in which mental health conditions may shape the risk of offending. This provides analytical leverage for future research by enabling more precise hypothesis formulation, improved measurement strategies, and clearer differentiation between types of exposure and outcomes. Conceptually, this bidirectional relationship can be understood as a feedback loop in which exposure to corporate crime generates psychological strain, while certain mental health conditions may, under specific organisational and structural conditions, increase susceptibility to engaging in corporate misconduct. This aligns with a public health perspective that recognises dynamic interactions between risk factors and outcomes over time rather than linear causation.

3. Evidence Linking Corporate Crime to Mental Health

Empirical evidence directly examining the impact of corporate crime (CC) on mental health is extremely limited. To address this gap, a comprehensive and systematic literature search was conducted across multiple databases, including Business Source Premier, PsycINFO, MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science, using a broad combination of terms related to corporate crime and mental health outcomes. Full details of the search strategy are provided in the Supplementary Material [36,37]. Inclusion criteria required studies to be peer-reviewed, written in English, published from 2004 onwards, provide empirical evidence of the relationship between CC and mental health outcomes, and focus on crimes committed by organizations in OECD countries. Exclusion criteria eliminated studies that focused on individual rather than organisational crime and government corruption. Review articles, viewpoints, or perspective papers were also excluded. Following these criteria, only two peer-reviewed studies were identified, both examining financial fraud in Spain [26,27]. Evidence from OECD countries is limited to two empirical studies, both conducted in Spain. In a sample of 188 participants, Zunzunegui et al. reported that fraud victims experienced poorer overall health and lower quality of life compared to non-victims [26]. Sarriá et al., using a larger sample of 4425, observed that severe exposure to fraud was associated with higher psychological distress, with notable gender differences: women reported reduced quality of life even under moderate financial impact, whereas men were primarily affected by severe financial loss [27]. It is important to note that both studies were cross-sectional, limiting causal inference and generalisability. Therefore, observed associations should not be interpreted as causal. Additionally, these findings cannot be generalised to other forms of corporate crime, which may affect mental health via different mechanisms. Despite these limitations, the reviewed studies illustrate potential pathways linking corporate financial crime to mental health outcomes, including stress, loss of trust, guilt, and financial insecurity [28,33]. However, these pathways are likely specific to the type of corporate crime examined, and broader claims about corporate crime in general require careful qualification. Accordingly, the current evidence base does not support generalisation across OECD countries but instead highlights a significant gap in empirical research within these settings.

4. Discussion: Challenges, Opportunities, and Public Health Implications

The evidence presented indicates that corporate crime can adversely affect mental health, but the available studies are limited in scope and methodology. The empirical evidence identified through the systematic descriptive review of research linking corporate crime and mental health outcomes in this paper focuses on financial fraud in a single country, Spain, and relies on cross-sectional designs [26,27]. These limitations prevent causal inference and generalisation to other types of corporate crime or different national contexts. Consequently, any claims about corporate crime broadly affecting population mental health must be qualified, highlighting the need for additional research across OECD countries and a wider range of crime types. Different forms of corporate crime are likely to influence mental health through distinct mechanisms. Financial crimes may cause stress, anxiety, depression, and reduced quality of life through financial loss and diminished trust [28,29,30,31,32,33]. While this paper focuses on corporate actors and therefore does not address governance-related offences such as corruption and antitrust violations, these forms of misconduct may also impact mental health, as they can erode institutional trust and provoke feelings of injustice, frustration, and helplessness [38]. Recognising these distinctions is essential for understanding the pathways from corporate crime to mental health outcomes. Furthermore, mental health can also act as a risk factor for perpetrating corporate crime, creating a bidirectional relationship. Personality disorders, impulse control disorders, substance use, and mood disorders may impair judgment, heighten impulsivity, or foster entitlement, thereby increasing susceptibility to corporate wrongdoing [34,35]. This bidirectional perspective, although underexplored in existing public health literature, represents a novel contribution, highlighting the need for research that considers both victimisation and offender mental health pathways [38]. In addition, from a public health standpoint, examining corporate crime requires attention to structural determinants of mental health. Socioeconomic conditions, access to mental health care, regulatory environments, and social inequalities may all mediate or moderate the relationship between corporate crime and mental health outcomes [19,39,40]. For example, in contexts with limited social safety nets, victims of financial crimes may experience more severe psychological consequences [26,27,30,31,32,33]. Similarly, marginalised populations may face disproportionate exposure to CC, compounding existing health disparities [39,40,41,42,43]. Methodologically, public health researchers must address limitations in measurement and study design. Cross-sectional data provide only snapshots of associations; longitudinal studies are essential to track mental health outcomes over time and to assess causal relationships [43,44,45,46,47]. Measures of corporate crime exposure should capture the type, frequency, severity, and consequences of offences, moving beyond binary indicators [26,27,43]. Additionally, research must account for confounding factors, such as socioeconomic status, pre-existing mental health conditions, and concurrent stressors, to accurately interpret associations. Despite these challenges, opportunities for public health engagement are significant. Investigating the mental health impact of corporate crime allows researchers to generate knowledge that informs policy and regulation, supports affected communities, and promotes justice and population well-being [48,49]. By integrating insights from stress theory, social determinants of health, and forensic psychiatry, scholars can develop comprehensive frameworks for understanding both individual and population-level outcomes [19,34,35]. Research in this area can also foster interdisciplinary collaboration, combining expertise from criminology, corporate governance, sociology, economics, and ethics to produce actionable interventions. In summary, addressing the mental health consequences of corporate crime requires careful differentiation of crime types, attention to bidirectional pathways, integration with structural determinants, and methodologically robust study designs. Public health researchers have the potential to generate actionable insights that guide interventions, policies, and regulations while advancing social justice, equity, and population mental well-being. Overall, this viewpoint underscores the critical need for empirical investigation, theoretical development, and interdisciplinary collaboration to fully understand and mitigate the public health impacts of corporate crime. Importantly, while the conceptual framework encompasses multiple forms of corporate crime, the empirical evidence reviewed here is limited to financial fraud, and conclusions should be interpreted within this narrower evidentiary scope.

Public Health Research Implications

Given the limited empirical evidence, public health researchers have a crucial role to play in expanding understanding of the mental health consequences of corporate crime. Research should focus on elucidating mechanisms for different types of corporate crime, including financial, labour, and governance offences. Studies must consider both individual-level and population-level outcomes, incorporating longitudinal designs to assess the temporal evolution of mental health impacts [44,45,46,47]. In addition, attention should be given to mental health vulnerabilities as potential antecedents to corporate offending, integrating insights from forensic psychiatry and behavioural sciences [34,35]. Measurement of exposure is another critical priority. Validated, multidimensional tools capturing the type, frequency, severity, and consequences of corporate crime are necessary to move beyond binary indicators and allow nuanced investigation of mental health effects [45,46]. Research should also examine the differential impact of corporate crime across populations, with particular attention to vulnerable or marginalised groups disproportionately affected by these offences [11,19]. Furthermore, public health research should translate findings into actionable policy recommendations. Evidence can inform regulatory interventions, organisational accountability mechanisms, and community-based support that mitigate the mental health consequences of corporate crime [48,49]. Engaging in this research also promotes interdisciplinary collaboration between public health, criminology, sociology, law, economics, and ethics, ultimately fostering holistic approaches to preventing harm and supporting victims [19,34,35]. By advancing theoretical understanding, clarifying mechanisms, and proposing concrete research directions, this viewpoint paper seeks to stimulate public health engagement with corporate crime. Recognising the diversity of corporate offences, the bidirectional interplay with mental health, and the need for context-sensitive research, researchers can generate knowledge that supports affected communities, informs policy, and promotes accountability, justice, and population mental well-being. Future research should prioritise clearly defined questions such as (i) how different types of corporate crime, including financial fraud and other white-collar crimes, differentially affect specific mental health outcomes; (ii) which mediating pathways, such as financial strain, loss of trust, and occupational stress, are most influential; and (iii) how these relationships vary across population groups and institutional contexts. Methodologically, longitudinal cohort studies and quasi-experimental designs are particularly well-suited to establishing temporal relationships and causal inference, while mixed-methods approaches can help capture complex mechanisms and lived experiences. Natural experiments, administrative data linkage, and population surveys incorporating validated mental health instruments may provide especially valuable evidence. Exposure to corporate crime should be operationalised using multidimensional measures that distinguish type, severity, duration, and proximity of exposure, allowing researchers to differentiate direct victimisation from indirect or systemic impacts.

5. Conclusions

Corporate crime remains an under-researched and insufficiently conceptualised determinant of population mental health within OECD countries. Limited evidence from financial fraud studies suggests victims may experience stress, anxiety, depression, and reduced quality of life, but the data are context-specific, not allowing generalisation to the entire OECD or broad causal conclusions. Different forms of corporate crime affect mental health through distinct mechanisms, and vulnerabilities may also increase the likelihood of offending, highlighting a bidirectional relationship. Public health research should investigate both victim impacts and antecedent risk factors, considering structural and social determinants such as socioeconomic status, access to care, and regulatory frameworks. Developing theoretical frameworks, robust studies, and evidence-based policies can help mitigate harm and promote population well-being and social equity. By proposing a structured and bidirectional conceptual framework and identifying a clear empirical gap, this viewpoint provides a foundation for more rigorous and targeted public health research in this emerging field.