Psychological distress in late adolescence: The role of inequalities in family affluence and municipal socioeconomic characteristics in Norway

Abstract

The present study aims to explore, in the national context of Norway, how municipal socioeconomic indicators affect anxiety and depressive symptom scores among senior high school students and whether this potential municipal effect is dependent on the adolescents’ family affluence levels. This cross-sectional study is based on questionnaire data collected in five waves (2014–2018) of the Ungdata survey. The study sample consisted of 97,460 adolescents aged 16–18 years attending high school in 156 municipalities in Norway. Measures of psychological distress, depression, and anxiety symptoms were based on the screening instrument, Hopkins Symptom Checklist-10. Two-level random intercept models were fitted to distinguish the individual and municipality sources of variation in adolescents’ mental health. In general, the results indicate substantial psychological symptom load among the study sample. Inequalities in adolescents’ psychological distress between family affluence groups were evident, with the lowest symptom loads in the most affluent families. The predicted depressive and anxiety symptoms among the students increased slightly along with the percentage of municipal residents with tertiary educations and with increasing income inequalities in their residential municipality. However, the interaction models suggest that the adverse effects of higher municipal education level and greater income inequality are, to a certain extent, steepest for adolescents with medium family affluence. This study highlights two key findings. Both municipality effects and family affluence account for a relatively small proportion of the total variance in the students’ psychological symptoms loads; however, the mental health inequalities we explored between socioeconomic strata on both the individual and municipal levels are not insignificant in a public health perspective. Results are discussed in the context of psychosocial mechanisms related to social comparison and perceptions of social status that may be applicable in egalitarian welfare states such as Norway.

Anxiety and depression-like behaviours are more frequent in aged male mice conceived by ART compared with natural conception

“…Different ovarian stimulation protocols and genetic backgrounds may affect the behavioural results in offspring for humans. Secondly, in addition to congenital background, there are many acquired aspects that might be related to anxiety and depression for humans, including home environment, educational background, life quality, income level, alcohol abuse, and stressful life events ( Ransome et al 2017 , Czamara et al 2021 , Haugan et al 2021 , Sparling et al 2021 ). Thirdly, we only assessed behaviours at 3 and 18 months old for offspring.…”

Helseskaping og helserisiko i skulekvardagen

“…Både elevane sjølve og dei tilsette i skulen skildra helse som noko biologisk, psykologisk og sosialt, og såg korleis helsa til elevane vert påverka på fleire områder i og utanfor skulekonteksten. Dette funnet er i tråd med annan forsking på unge i Noreg som viser at helse er eit komplekst fenomen der ulike faktorar heng saman og kan påverke kvarandre (Haugan et al, 2021;Jahre et al, 2021;Jonassen et al, 2021).…”

“…Jonassen et al (2021) fann tilsvarande at bruk av reseptfrie smertestillande medikament var knytt til angst og depresjon, så vel som til somatiske smerter. Helseutfordringar varierer óg etter sosioøkonomisk status og sosial ulikskap (Haugan et al, 2021).…”

Do Municipal Contexts Matter for Adolescent Mental Health? A Within-Municipality Analysis of Nationwide Norwegian Survey Data Across Six Years

“…First, municipality socio-economic status (SES) has been examined as a potential risk for adverse adolescent mental health (e.g., Fong et al, 2019;Haugan et al, 2021;Xiao et al, 2017). For example, adolescents residing in communities with a higher proportion of unemployed or poor families may be more exposed to delinquent peer behaviour or lower levels of parental monitoring, which in turn may affect their psychological well-being and mental health (Ingoldsby et al, 2006).…”