Do young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) have more health problems than their peers? A cross-sectional study among Norwegian adolescents

Abstract

Objectives: An increasing proportion of young Norwegians are categorised as too ill to attend upper secondary education, and poor physical and mental health may reduce their opportunities to return to school or find paid employment. This study examined the differences in self-perceived health, mental health, and prevalence of pain between Norwegian adolescents, who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) compared to adolescents who attend upper secondary school (age 16-21 years).Design: Cross-sectional study.Participants and setting: A total of 96 NEET youth and 384 age and gender matched adolescents attending upper secondary school in the south of Norway participated in the study.Main outcome measures: Self-perceived health, mental health and pain.Results: Multivariable analyses, adjusted for parental education, showed that more NEET girls reported poor self-perceived health (odds ratio 3.2; 95% CI 1.4–7.5) and poor mental health (2.4;1.0–5.2) when compared to girls who were attending school. The results showed no difference in the prevalence of various types of pain between girls who were attending or not attending school, and among boys the results showed no differences in health problems assessed in this study.Conclusion: The study indicates that NEET girls have poorer self-perceived health and poorer mental health when compared to girls who are attending upper secondary school. It will be essential to identify the causes of these health problems. This may provide a basis for specially adapted measures that could help more people in the target group return to school or paid employment.

Are you scared of what comes next? Students' future career anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…The difficulties related to school-to-work transition generally seem to lead to youth psychological distress, anxiety, and maladaptive behavior (Parola et al, 2019;Stea et al, 2019) that might eventually contribute to their low life satisfaction and poor mental health (Forma et al, 2017;Kivijärvi et al, 2019). Cao et al (2020) suggested that young people may be at the highest risk for mental illnesses due to the COVID-19, regardless of their experience with the novel coronavirus.…”

The mental health of young people who are not in education, employment, or training: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Six studies conducted gender-stratified analysis [ 19 , 20 , 42 , 46 , 49 , 50 ]. In Bania et al [ 42 ], conduct problems at age 15–16 predicted becoming NEET 9 years later among men (OR 1.17, CI 1.07–1.28) and women (OR 1.25, CI 1.17–1.33), while emotional problems were associated with lower odds of becoming NEET in men (OR 0.88, CI 0.81–0.97), but not women (OR 1.04, CI 0.97–1.11).…”

“…In their cross-sectional study, Stea et al [ 50 ] found an association between NEET and psychological distress among women (OR 2.40, CI 1.00–5.20), but not men (estimate unavailable), whereas Basta et al [ 46 ] found no association with distress among women (OR 0.98, CI 0.95–1.02) and men (OR 0.99, CI 0.96–1.03).…”

State level agreed-upon factors contributing to more effective policymaking for public sector services for effective local-level work with NEETs

“…The disadvantaged situation of NEET youth is further exacerbated by health problems (OECD 2015b;Hammarström and Ahlgren 2019;Stea et al 2019) and gender (Russell 2016 a,b;Saczyńska-Sokół 2018). Therefore, NEET youth require a complex, multi-faceted approach since gender, place of residence, manner of intervention, possible financial support, disability, and other temporal factors can all significantly impact upon whether young people are in employment or education (Luthra et al 2018).…”