Mental health problems among economically disadvantaged adolescents in an increasingly unequal society: A Swedish study using repeated cross-sectional data from 1995 to 2011

Abstract

Increasing inequality in many societies highlights the importance of paying attention to differences in mental health between the economically disadvantaged adolescents and the non-disadvantaged adolescents. Also important is to understand how changing inequality in society over time influences adolescents’ mental health at the population- and individual-level. The current study examined to what extent increased societal-level income inequality over time, individual-level experiences of economic disadvantage and the cross-level interaction between the two explained Swedish adolescents’ mental health problems from 1995 to 2011. We used repeated cross-sectional data collected 6 times between 1995 and 2011 in Sweden. Each time, approximately 2500 students in grade 9 completed a questionnaire during the spring semester. The adolescents provided self-report data on the frequency of their experiences of unaffordability of daily leisure activities (concert, movie, sports, and dance). They also reported their psychosomatic symptoms, which was used as a measure of mental health problems. We used the household equalised disposable income Gini coefficient as an indicator of societal income inequality. A real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was controlled for in order to rule out potential effects of economic growth in the society over time. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted in which students were nested in years of investigations. Adolescents who experienced unaffordability of daily leisure activities reported more mental health problems. Societal income inequality was not directly associated with the adolescents’ mental health. However, among girls the effects of experiences of unaffordability on mental health were stronger for all but one (sports) activities, and among boys for one activity (sports) when societal-level inequality was greater. Individual-level economic disadvantage are detrimental for adolescents’ mental health, both directly and interactively with societal-level economic inequality. Some suggestions for practice and future studies are made for mental health among adolescents in societies where increasing inequality is observed.

Independent contributions of family and neighbourhood indicators of socioeconomic status and migrant status to risk of mental health problems in 4–12 year old children

“…Perceived financial difficulties and material deprivation are both independently associated with risk of MHP in children in our study. Our findings are supported by other studies performed in the United Kingdom, United States of Americaand Sweden ( Kirby, Wright, & Allgar, 2019 ; Kim & Hagquist, 2018 ; Neckerman et al, 2016 ). A possible explanation may be that not only poverty or quantitative income but also the experience of financial difficulties and material deprivation play a role ( Alegría et al, 2018 ).…”

Mental Health Problems Among Adolescents in Sweden from 1995 to 2011: The Role of Immigrant Status and the Proportions of Immigrant Adolescents in Their Surrounding Community

“…Psychometric analysis based on the Rasch model assigned each adolescent a location value on a logit scale where a higher value indicates a greater degree of psychosomatic problems. We considered psychosomatic problems as a relevant indicator of mental health problems as this indicator has previously been used to investigate long-term trends in mental health among Swedish adolescents as well as group differences in this trend e.g., [20,29,30].…”

“…The indicator of economic situation was created by summing and then standardizing the scores of these four items. The unaffordability of daily leisure activities has explained mental health among Swedish adolescents in the context of cross-sectional [32] as well as time trend studies [30].…”

Mental Health of PhD Students at Polish Universities—Before the COVID-19 Outbreak

“…A report by the World Health Organization (WHO) [35] mentioned that the number of people with mental health problems will increase, and young people are among the highest risk group that can experience this problem. The problem of mental health among students has been analyzed by researchers all over the world [36]. Liu and colleagues [37] observed an increase in depression among American college students.…”