Balloo Kieran, Hosein Anesa, Byrom Nicola, Essau Cecilia A
USQ College, University of Southern Queensland, Springfield, Queensland, Australia.
Surrey Institute of Education, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK.
SSM Popul Health. 2022 Jun 18;19:101149. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2022.101149. eCollection 2022 Sep.
There is an increasing focus on structural and social determinants of inequalities in young people's mental health across different social contexts. Taking higher education as a specific social context, it is unclear whether university attendance shapes the impact of intersectional social identities and positions on young people's mental health outcomes. Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA) was used to predict the odds that mental distress during adolescence, sex, socioeconomic status, sexual identity, ethnicity, and their intersections, were associated with young people's mental health outcomes at age 25, and whether this differed based on university attendance. Data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England cohort study were analysed with the MAIHDA approach, and the results did not reveal any evidence of multiplicative intersectional (i.e., aggravating) effects on young people's mental health outcomes. However, important main effects of social identities and positions (i.e., an additive model) were observed. The findings suggested that being female or identifying as a sexual minority increased the odds of young people experiencing mental health problems at age 25, although the odds of self-harming were half the size for sexual minorities who had attended university. Black and Asian individuals were less likely to declare a mental illness than White individuals. Young people who grew up in a more deprived area and had not attended university were more likely to experience mental health problems. These findings imply that mental health interventions for young people do not necessarily have to be designed exclusively for specific intersectional groups. Further, university attendance appears to produce better mental health outcomes for some young people, hence more investigation is needed to understand what universities do for young people, and whether this could be replicated in the wider general population.
在不同社会背景下，人们越来越关注年轻人心理健康不平等的结构和社会决定因素。以高等教育作为一个特定的社会背景，目前尚不清楚上大学是否会影响交叉社会身份和地位对年轻人心理健康结果的影响。个体异质性和歧视准确性的多层次分析（MAIHDA）被用于预测青少年时期的心理困扰、性别、社会经济地位、性取向、种族及其交叉因素与25岁年轻人心理健康结果之间的关联几率，以及这种关联是否因是否上过大学而有所不同。采用MAIHDA方法对英国年轻人纵向队列研究的数据进行了分析，结果并未发现对年轻人心理健康结果存在相乘交叉（即加重）效应的任何证据。然而，观察到了社会身份和地位的重要主效应（即相加模型）。研究结果表明，女性或性少数群体身份会增加25岁年轻人出现心理健康问题的几率，不过上过大学的性少数群体自我伤害的几率只有未上过大学者的一半。黑人和亚洲人比白人更不太可能宣称患有精神疾病。在更贫困地区长大且未上过大学的年轻人更有可能出现心理健康问题。这些发现意味着，针对年轻人的心理健康干预措施不一定非要专门针对特定的交叉群体设计。此外，上大学似乎能为一些年轻人带来更好的心理健康结果，因此需要进一步研究以了解大学对年轻人起到了什么作用，以及这是否能在更广泛的普通人群中得到推广。
