The role of subjective social status in shaping adolescent mental health

• In Event: 4167 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Children & Youth Roundtable 1: Emotional Health

Abstract

The current study seeks to examine the extent to which objective social status (OSS) and subjective social status (SSS) predict changes in depressive symptoms over time in a population-based cohort of southern California adolescents. Data were collected as part of the Happiness and Health Study, a longitudinal survey of substance use and mental health among students from ten participating high schools in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. First, this study will examine the influences of OSS and SSS on the trajectory of depressive symptoms during adolescence. Second, it will examine the unique dimensions of school SSS and societal SSS on the trajectory of adolescent depressive symptoms. This study is novel in that it is seeking to understand how multiple dimensions of subjective status may be stronger predictors in adolescence of mental health outcomes across time in comparison with conventional measures of objective social status.

Author

• Nafeesa Andrabi, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill