Cumulative Childhood Adversity and Its Associations With Mental Health in Childhood, Adolescence, and Adulthood in Rural China

Abstract

Capitalizing on a 15-year longitudinal dataset of 9–12 years old children in rural China, this study adopts a life course perspective and analyzes cumulative childhood adversity and its associations with mental health problems from childhood to adulthood. Four domains of childhood life are selected to construct cumulative childhood adversity: socioeconomic hardship, family disruption, physical issue, and academic setback. Overall, cumulative childhood adversity significantly associates with children’s internalizing and externalizing problems as well as adults’ depression and self-esteem. However, cumulative childhood adversity has no significant relationship with internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescence. Furthermore, different domains of childhood adversity matter differently for mental health problems in different life stages. Physical issue and academic setback have the strongest association with internalizing and externalizing problems in childhood, while only socioeconomic hardship has a significant relationship with depression and self-esteem in adulthood. The relationship between cumulative childhood adversity and adult mental health problems is fully mediated by educational attainment. Finally, there is no gender difference in either the occurrence of cumulative childhood adversity or the association between cumulative childhood adversity and mental health problems.

Context‐relevant risk and protective factors for children in rural communities: Long‐term implications for adulthood educational and mental health outcomes

“…For instance, Horan and Widom (2015) find that there is a slight gender difference in the relationship between childhood risk factors and adulthood educational attainment—girls exposed to more childhood risk factors have lower educational attainment while boys exposed to a middle level of childhood risk factors have the lowest educational attainment, although the gender differences in the associations between childhood risk factors and adulthood anxiety and depression are nonsignificant. In contrast, some other studies (e.g., Costello et al, 2008; Shen, 2021) find no significant gender differences in the long‐term implications of childhood risk and protective factors for adulthood outcomes. This is consistent with most of our findings.…”

Childhood adversities and rate of adulthood all-cause hospitalization in the general population: A retrospective cohort study

“…Potential mediators. Based on the existing literature [10,[25][26][27][28], we examined various socioeconomic, lifestyle, and psychosocial factors as potential mediators. The variables are dichotomized for uniformity and simplified presentation of results and to comply with the minimum cell size criteria of Statistics Canada for vetting of results.…”

“…The study thus investigates the association between specific childhood adversities and the number of hospitalizations among adults in the general population. CCHS measures a wide range of adult sociodemographic variables and collects information on health status and determinants of health, which may be risk factors for increased hospitalizations and could be the target of public health interventions [10,[25][26][27][28]. The study also aims to examine whether adult physical, mental, and social health-related variables may mediate the association between childhood adversities and the rate of hospitalization.…”