Subjective social status and mental health among young adolescents: Evidence from census data to cellphones

• In Event: 3-092 - Novel Approaches for Measuring Neighborhoods and their Influence on Child Outcomes

Integrative Statement

Adolescents in the United States live amidst high levels of concentrated poverty and increasing income inequality. Existing evidence links both adolescents’ level of economic disadvantage as well as perceptions of their own social status to mental health problems (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002; Quon & McGrath, 2014). However, less is known about how local contextual factors, such as neighborhood income or inequality levels, relate to adolescents’ perceptions of their own social status and, in turn, their mental wellbeing. This study examined three questions regarding the development of social status and mental health: (1) How closely do young adolescents’ perceptions of social status track with family, school and neighborhood economic indicators? Do those perceptions become more accurately calibrated with age and/or vary across racial or gender subgroups? (2) Are adolescents’ perceptions of social status uniquely associated with mental health outcomes, and if so, when do these associations first emerge? And (3) Does local area income inequality influence adolescents’ mental health and subjective social status?
Participants come from the Research on Adaptive Interests, Skills, and Environments (RAISE) Study, which included a large representative sample of North Carolina public school children (N = 2,104; aged 10-16) assessed using diverse data sources and methods, including an initial survey questionnaire, geo-coded demographic and economic context information from the census and the American Community Surveys, and administrative record data from public schools. A subsample (n = 395) of adolescents also completed in-home assessments and a 14-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA), which included data from wearable devices and three short mobile phone surveys each day. Participants’ subjective social status (SSS) was assessed using a ladder measure at the start of the EMA, and mental health symptoms were measured both at baseline for the entire sample and daily in the EMA sample.
Adolescents’ SSS tracked family, school and neighborhood economic indicators (|r| ranging from 0.12 to 0.30; Table 1, Model A), and associations did not differ by age, race, or gender. SSS was independently associated with mental health, with stronger associations among older (aged 14 to 16) versus younger (aged 10 to 13) adolescents (Figure 1). Adolescents with lower SSS reported higher psychological distress and inattention problems in the initial survey questionnaire, as well as more conduct problems in daily life. Those living in areas with higher income inequality reported significantly lower subjective social status, but this association was explained by family and neighborhood income (Table 1, Model B).
Findings suggest that the calibration of adolescents’ subjective social status to their economic reality has already begun by early adolescence, though local economic inequality was not an apparent factor in that process. Further, they illustrate that adolescents’ SSS is correlated with both internalizing and internalizing mental health problems, and that by age 14 SSS becomes a unique predictor of mental health problems.

Authors

• Joshua G. Rivenbark, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, and Medical Scientist Training Program, Duke University School of Medicine
  Presenting Author

• William Copeland, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Erin Davisson, Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anna Gassman-Pines, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Rick Hoyle, Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joy Rayanne Piontak, RTI International
  Non-Presenting Author

• Michael Russell, Department of Biobehavioral Health, The Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ann T. Skinner, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Candice L. Odgers, University of California, Irvine
  Non-Presenting Author