Trends in health complaints from 2002 to 2010 in 34 countries and their association with health behaviours and social context factors at individual and macro-level

Abstract

Factors associated with health complaints are more related to the proximal environment than to distal macro-level factors. This points towards intensifying targeted interventions, (e.g. for bullying) and also targeting specific risk groups. The comparably small effect size at country-level indicates that country-level factors have an impact on health and should not be ignored.

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

“…Although the increase was more pronounced in Sweden than in other countries, the total increase during the investigated period is about 30%. This variation is much smaller than what is reported in a previous study conducted by Ottová-Jordan et al (2015). In that study, the authors compared 34 countries where the highest Gini coefficient from Russia (45.20) was more than double of the lowest Gini coefficient from Sweden (21.90) and indeed reported a significant main effect of Gini coefficient on adolescents’ mental health.…”

“…The majority of previous studies presented such a message by comparing adolescents living in different countries (Elgar et al, 2015, Holstein et al, 2009, Ottová-Jordan et al, 2015) and by making a connection between the change in income inequality and the change in life expectancy of the adult population (Walberg et al, 1998, Wilkinson, 1992). The current study expanded these previous efforts by examining inequality in the same country repeatedly over time and by examining mental health among adolescents.…”

“…These studies compared adolescents’ mental health among different countries with different levels of societal income inequality. The results showed that students living in countries with higher income inequality reported higher levels of mental health problems than those living in countries with lower income inequality (Elgar et al, 2015, Holstein et al, 2009, Ottová-Jordan et al, 2015). One exception is a study conducted in the U.S. that compared different communities within the U.S. and did not reveal a relation between income inequality and mental disorders in adolescents (McLaughlin et al, 2012).…”

“…Although still at its initial stage, empirical evidence on this topic obtained from adolescent samples are increasingly available in the literature, both for physical health (Torsheim, Currie, Boyce, & Samdal, 2006) and, more recently, for mental health (Elgar et al, 2015, Holstein et al, 2009, McLaughlin et al, 2012, Ottová-Jordan et al, 2015). Regarding mental health, all but one study were based on data from the international Health Behaviours in School-aged Children (HBSC) study.…”

“…However, those studies and the current study share a similar view and rationale for looking at this interaction: the gaps in mental health problems between the disadvantaged and the advantaged are expected to widen as society becomes more unequal and as materialism and individualism are more pervasive in the society (Eckersley, 2006, Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009). Indeed, many studies reported an increasing gap in mental health problems between the advantaged and disadvantaged over time (Langton et al, 2011, Levin et al, 2009, Ottová-Jordan et al, 2015, Torikka et al, 2014). This led to a call for future studies to directly test the hypothesis that the diverging gaps in mental health over time were due to an interaction between inequality and individual-level disadvantage on mental health (Torikka et al, 2014).…”