Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Introduction: Growing up in an impoverished or unequal economic environment contributes to mental health problems in youths, but how this happens is still unclear. One hypothesis is that there may be a time during childhood, such as early childhood, when children are more vulnerable to income deprivation (sensitive period model). Another hypothesis suggests that it may be the repeated and cumulative exposure to income deprivation that affects the development of mental health in youth (accumulation of risk model). In this project, we tested both hypotheses to examine how income deprivation in childhood might impact adolescent mental health. Methods: The study used data from a large survey of 2234 adolescents from the United States (Child Development Supplements of the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics). The survey collected information on household income every year dating back to the birth year of the adolescents. We estimated relative income deprivation by categorizing household income into quintiles. Adolescent mental health was measured from 12 questions. We used advanced statistical techniques to test the sensitive period model. We calculated the number of years that children spent in income deprivation to test the accumulation of risk model. We controlled for family characteristics in the analyses. Results: We found that each year spent in income deprivation negatively affected the level of mental health of adolescents. There was no evidence of a specific time period during childhood when children were more sensitive to income deprivation. Conclusion: Results from this study suggests that the accumulated effect of income deprivation is what affects youth mental health, irrespective of when it occurred during childhood.