Multiple Dimensions of Stratification in Adolescent Mental Health: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

• In Event: 096 - Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) Research Session. Issues in Health, Well-Being, and Stratification

Abstract

In the United States, the prevalence of mental disorder, particularly social and behavioral disorders has been steadily increasing in both the adult and adolescent population, with approximately half of all cases of disorder in adults presenting by early adolescence. As reviewed by Reiss (2013), it has become increasingly clear that socioeconomic position greatly affects an adolescents’ likelihood of experiencing some form of mental illness; however, this body of research has neglected an important issue. Socioeconomic status is a complex variable that is often measured using education, income, occupation, or a scale, and it is unlikely that each of these measures affect mental health equally (McLaughlin 2012). Further, the effects of socioeconomic status are mediated varying forms of social support, such as the adolescents’ family, peer, and school emotional support, which can buffer or exasperate the effects of socioeconomic position (Rose 2014). Finally, the relationship between socioeconomic position, social support and mental health is in many ways conditional upon race and gender. Utilizing data from the National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent Supplement (NCSA), this research will (1) examine how socioeconomic status, multiply measured, jointly impact mental health, (2) examine the extent to which these relationships are mediated by family, school, and peer social support (3) analyze whether or not the relationship between socioeconomic status and social support and mental health differs by racial/ethnic group and gender.

Author

• Zinobia Chara Bennefield, University of North Carolina at Charlotte