Loading...
Early neighborhood conditions and trajectories of depressive symptoms across adolescence and into adulthood
Journal Title
Advances in Life Course Research
Keywords
Readers/Advisors
Journal Title
Term and Year
Publication Date
2018-03
Book Title
Publication Volume
35
Publication Issue
Publication Begin
57
Publication End
68
Number of pages
Collections
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Abstract
Early life conditions, including childhood socioeconomic status (SES) or exposure to adverse conditions, can have long-term consequences on mental health. However, relatively little has examined the long-term influence of exposure to adverse neighborhood conditions in early life. Both neighborhood disadvantage and neighborhood disorder have been consistently linked to mental health outcomes, especially depression. The current analysis uses data from all waves of the National Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to determine the influence of neighborhood context on trajectories of depressive symptoms from adolescence into adulthood. We find that neighborhood disadvantage has no influence on initial levels or change over time in depressive symptoms after adjusting for individual level covariates. However, neighborhood disorder is associated with greater initial levels of depressive symptoms during adolescence and this difference persists throughout the early life course. Additionally, while female respondents had greater levels of depressive symptoms across time, the effect of neighborhood conditions did not vary by sex. Our results demonstrate that early neighborhood conditions are an important risk factor for long-term patterns of depressive symptoms, above and beyond important proximal factors such as family SES, family composition, and race-ethnicity.
Citation
Peter B. Barr, Early neighborhood conditions and trajectories of depressive symptoms across adolescence and into adulthood, Advances in Life Course Research, Volume 35, 2018, Pages 57-68, ISSN 1040-2608, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alcr.2018.01.005.