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3-179 - Growing up in a City: The Influence of Urbanicity on Development in Youth

Sat, April 8, 2:30 to 4:00pm, Austin Convention Center, Meeting Room 18D

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Youth are growing up in an increasingly urban world. There are clear advantages to living in a city (e.g., proximity to resources, educational opportunities), however evidence is accumulating for adverse effects of urbanicity on youth’s development. In this symposium, we present results from four studies showing that youth who live in more urban areas have more mental health problems and poorer cognitive skills than their counterparts from more rural areas. The results of our studies are unique in that we have gone beyond examining the impact of urbanicity on youth’s development and have begun to map out the mechanisms underlying this association. For example, we show that factors such as neighborhood quality, parenting, and social stress are pivotal. Our studies are highly diverse: we draw on data from three countries (the United States, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom), using multiple types of samples (general population, high-risk, patient) of different ages (children and adolescents) and using varied designs (longitudinal-observational, experimental). Importantly, our studies address the complex relationship between urbanicity and low socioeconomic status, which has long been recognized to negatively impact youth’s development. Intriguingly, our findings suggest that low socioeconomic status and urbanicity independently influence youth outcomes and also that urbanicity moderates the association between low socioeconomic status and youth outcomes. Results from our studies thus contribute to the rising concern that growing up in urban areas increases the risk for impairments in youth’s development and wellbeing. More pertinently, we propose underlying mechanisms that can help to elucidate this association.

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