Department of Education, Gwangju National University of Education, Yeonjingwan 303, 55 Pilmun-daero, Buk-gu, Gwangju, South Korea.
Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol. 2024 Feb;52(2):169-182. doi: 10.1007/s10802-023-01123-3. Epub 2023 Sep 9.
Despite growing concerns about substantial socio-economic differences between districts in many developed nations, limited attention has been paid to how adolescent mental health may be shaped by district characteristics. A few studies have shown that adolescent mental health is related to contextual factors such as district socio-economic status, neighborhood disorder, and quality of infrastructure. However, prior estimates may be an artifact of unmeasured differences between districts. To address these concerns, we used data from the nationwide Norwegian Ungdata surveys (N = 278,764), conducted across the years 2014 to 2019. We applied three-level hierarchical linear models to examine within-municipality associations between municipal factors and adolescent mental health in the domains of internalizing problems (i.e., depressive symptoms), externalizing problems (i.e., behavioral problems), and well-being (i.e., self-esteem), thereby accounting for all time-invariant municipality-level confounders. Our results showed that municipal-level safety, infrastructure, and youth culture are associated with adolescent mental health problems. Further, cross-level interaction models indicated gender-specific associations, with stronger associations of municipality infrastructure and community belongingness with increased self-esteem and reduced delinquent behaviors among girls than boys. Our findings highlight that municipality-level interventions may be a feasible strategy for adolescent mental health, even in a society characterized by low inequality and high redistribution.
尽管许多发达国家都存在着地区间明显的社会经济差异问题，但对于青少年心理健康可能受到地区特征影响的问题，关注较少。一些研究表明，青少年心理健康与社会经济地位、邻里混乱和基础设施质量等环境因素有关。然而，之前的估计可能是由于地区间未被测量的差异造成的。为了解决这些问题，我们使用了来自全国范围的挪威 Ungdata 调查（N=278764）的数据，这些调查是在 2014 年至 2019 年期间进行的。我们应用了三层层次线性模型，以检验市政因素与内在问题（即抑郁症状）、外在问题（即行为问题）和幸福感（即自尊）领域内市一级关联，从而考虑了所有时间不变的市一级混杂因素。我们的结果表明，市一级的安全、基础设施和青年文化与青少年心理健康问题有关。此外，跨层次交互模型表明存在性别特异性关联，与男孩相比，女孩的市政基础设施和社区归属感与自尊心提高和犯罪行为减少的关联更强。我们的研究结果强调，即使在一个不平等程度低和再分配程度高的社会中，市一级的干预措施也可能是青少年心理健康的可行策略。
