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Socioeconomic status and adolescent mental disorders
Katie A McLaughlin1, E Jane Costello, William Leblanc
1Division of General Pediatrics, Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. mclaughlin@childrens.harvard.edu
American Journal of Public Health
|August 10, 2012
Summary
Perceived social status, not objective socioeconomic status (SES), most strongly predicts adolescent mental disorders. Interventions targeting subjective social status may improve youth mental health outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Psychiatry
- Sociology
- Public Health
Background:
- Previous research indicates a link between low socioeconomic status (SES) and mental illness.
- The specific SES factors most influential on adolescent mental health remain unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the associations between five distinct aspects of socioeconomic status (SES) and adolescent mental disorders.
- To identify which components of SES are most critically linked to mental health in adolescents.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from a national survey of 6,483 U.S. adolescents.
- Examined associations between absolute SES (parental income, education), relative SES (relative deprivation, subjective social status), and community income variation (Gini coefficient) with past-year mental disorders.
Main Results:
- Subjective social status demonstrated the most consistent association with mental disorders across categories (mood, anxiety, substance, behavior).
- Odds ratios for mental disorders ranged from 0.7 to 0.8, indicating a protective effect of higher subjective social status, particularly for White adolescents.
- Parental education was linked to lower anxiety disorder risk, while relative deprivation was associated with higher mood disorder risk.
Conclusions:
- Perceived social status, a subjective aspect of SES, is most directly associated with adolescent mental disorders.
- Subjective social status may be a more tractable target for mental health interventions compared to objective SES indicators.
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