Community involvement and adolescent mental health: moderating effects of race/ethnicity and neighborhood disadvantage

Abstract

Social development and stress process theories suggest that participation in one's community can function as a protective factor for mental health, especially for youth from socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. However, the effects of community involvement on adolescent mental health could vary across racial/ethnic groups and levels of neighborhood disadvantage. The objectives of this paper are to: (1) examine the effects of various types of community involvement on adolescent mental health, and (2) assess the extent to which race/ethnicity and neighborhood disadvantage moderate the effects of community involvement on adolescent mental health. Using data from two waves (1994/95 and 1996) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (“Add Health,” N=7,863), multilevel (hierarchical) linear models were estimated that tested for interaction effects of race/ethnicity and neighborhood disadvantage. The types of community participation that impacted adolescent mental health varied across racial/ethnic groups. Neighborhood interaction and religious participation were salient for both White and Hispanic teens, but the impact of religious participation for Whites was moderated by neighborhood disadvantage. Non‐sport extracurricular activities and employment were the salient factors for Black teens, both of which were moderated by neighborhood disadvantage. The findings from this study have implications for community‐level and clinical interventions to prevent and/or treat mental health problems among adolescents. Social integration interventions should take into account adolescents' cultural backgrounds and socioeconomic contexts in order to be effective. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Protective Mechanisms for Depression among Racial/Ethnic Minority Youth: Empirical Findings, Issues, and Recommendations

“…Non-sport extracurricular activities protected African American adolescents against depression when exposed to various forms of adversity (Hull et al 2008;Stiffman et al 1992). Hispanic adolescents were also protected in one of these studies (Hull et al 2008) in the context of disadvantaged neighborhoods.…”

“…Familylevel risk factors include: parent with the health condition, socioeconomic disadvantage, single-parent family structure, and deleterious family relationships (Costello et al 2008;Wickrama et al 2009). Community-level risk factors include: poor or violent neighborhoods and peer victimization/discrimination (Hull et al 2008;Walsemann et al 2011). These risk factors likely have reciprocal relationships with one another; for example, having socioeconomic disadvantages as a family may lead to attending schools prone to violence and poor academic standards, which causes more stress and lower scholastic achievement.…”

“…Religiosity in the form of importance and frequency of religious service attendance was protective for Hispanic youth (Epstein-Ngo et al 2013;Hull et al 2008), but not African American youth (Cooper et al 2013;Hull et al 2008). The risk contexts studied included: neighborhood disadvantage, discrimination, personal victimization, and witnessing violence.…”

“…Hispanic adolescents were also protected in one of these studies (Hull et al 2008) in the context of disadvantaged neighborhoods. However, engagement in prosocial activities (e.g., membership in athletic teams and community groups) was not found to be protective for African American and Hispanic adolescents in the context of stressful life events (Tolan et al 2013).…”

“…Working for pay protected African American, but not Hispanic adolescents against depression when experiencing neighborhood disadvantage (Hull et al 2008). …”