Family Social Capital and Mental Health Outcomes in Children

• In Event: 41021 - Student Forum Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Roundtable 5: Mental Health and Well-being

Abstract

Depression and anxiety are mental health illnesses that occur throughout childhood and can affect the day-to-day life of children. The prevalence of mental illnesses increases with age. Previous research suggests that family social capital acts as a positive social determinant of health. Common measures of bonding family social capital are eating meals together as a family, talking about things that matter, parents attending their child’s activities, and talking about how to face problems as a family. We hypothesize that high levels of family social capital will be associated with a decreased likelihood of being diagnosed with a mental health condition. Running a multinomial logistic regression, the ability for families to talk about things that matter or share ideas was the only measure of family social capital that was associated with decreased mental health diagnosis (p < .05), after controlling for race and ethnicity, age, sex, parental education, ACEs, neighborhood social capital, peer social capital, poverty, poor healthcare access, experiencing racism, experiencing bullying due to a health condition, and experiencing homophobia.

Authors

• Scott Sais, Brigham Young University-Provo

• Kaila Mae Nevarez, Brigham Young University-Provo