Neighbourhood level and individual level SES effects on child problem behaviour: a multilevel analysis

Abstract

Objective-This study examined whether neighbourhood level socioeconomic variables have an independent eVect on reported child behaviour problems over and above the eVect of individual level measures of socioeconomic status. 45).Conclusions-Living in a more deprived neighbourhood is associated with higher levels of child problem behaviour, irrespective of individual level socioeconomic status. The additional eVect of the neighbourhood may be attributable to contextual variables such as the level of social cohesion among residents. (J Epidemiol Community Health 2001;55:246-250) As it is known that behaviour problems in children increase the risk for later psychopathology, 1 unravelling the aetiology of early problem behaviour may provide possibilities for prevention of adult mental disorder. Many studies have shown that individual level variables, such as exposure to marital discord or coming from a low income family, are associated with behaviour problems in children. [2][3][4] In addition, behaviour problems occur more frequently in children living in deprived urban areas than in children living in rural communities.5 6 However, whether neighbourhood level socioeconomic variables have an independent eVect on child behaviour problems over and above the eVect of individual level variables has scarcely been studied. Duncan and colleagues have demonstrated that neighbourhood economic conditions and poverty status are powerful correlates of the behaviour of children even after accounting for family structure and maternal education.7 However, most studies on the eVects of neighbourhood on child behaviour have been hampered by the absence of data combining information at the individual, family, and neighbourhood levels in the appropriate statistical model. Thus, most studies on neighbourhood diVerences on child behaviour problems have not taken into account the hierarchical fashion in which such data are organised. Data that are grouped according to neighbourhood are, in statistical terms, part of a multilevel structure, with level one units (individuals) being clustered into level two units (neighbourhoods). Individuals from the same neighbourhood are more similar to each other than individuals from diVerent areas, implying that the variation of reported child behaviour problems is smaller than if it were completely random. A conventional regression technique cannot take into account the variance components of two diVerent levels, thus underestimating the standard errors of regression coeYcients.

Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders Among Children of Different Ethnic Origin

“…Possibly, the variation in SES in these low SES inner-city areas is too small to detect associations between SES and the prevalence of psychiatric disorders. Another explanation may be that the influence of living in a deprived neighborhood outweighs the effect of the individual level of SES on the prevalence of psychiatric disorders (Kalff et al, 2001).…”

What explains the relation between family poverty and childhood depressive symptoms?

“…These findings support the hypothesis that neighborhood characteristics like median household income and level of violent crime may serve as proxy risk factors, which are only associated with depressive symptoms through their relation with family income. However, other studies have observed a significant effect of neighborhood deprivation on internalizing symptoms or behavior problems in younger age groups, even after adjusting for individual-level SES and other demographic characteristics (Caspi et al, 2000;Kalff et al, 2001;Xue et al, 2005), though few studies have evaluated the influence of neighborhood residence on the risk of depression among older children using objective measures of neighborhood characteristics. The Moving to Opportunity Study demonstrated that children whose families moved from high-to low-poverty neighborhoods experienced significant declines in anxious and depressive symptoms, compared to children in families who remained in impoverished neighborhoods, but only among boys (Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2003).…”

“…However, little evidence exists as to whether neighborhood characteristics like poverty and violent crime influence depressive symptoms in children and adolescents independent of their association with family SES, as many studies of the relations between neighborhood characteristics and depressive symptoms have not included adjustment for family SES (e.g. Ozer & Weinstein, 2004) and few studies have looked explicitly at depressive symptoms, focusing instead on problem behaviors or developmental and academic outcomes (Brooks-Gunn et al, 1993;Kalff et al, 2001;Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2000). We hypothesize that neighborhood characteristics are proxy risk factors (Kraemer et al, 2001) for family income, associated with depressive symptoms only through their relation with family income (Figure 1c).…”

“…Third, children in families with low SES may be more likely than those in higher SES families to reside in more disadvantaged neighborhoods with higher levels of crime, exposing them to suboptimal physical and social environmental conditions that may adversely influence their mental health (Goodman et al, 2003;Kalff et al, 2001;McLeod & Shanahan, 1993;McLoyd, 1998;Takeuchi et al, 1991). However, little evidence exists as to whether neighborhood characteristics like poverty and violent crime influence depressive symptoms in children and adolescents independent of their association with family SES, as many studies of the relations between neighborhood characteristics and depressive symptoms have not included adjustment for family SES (e.g.…”

A Longitudinal Community Study: Do Psychosocial Risk Factors and Child Behavior Checklist Scores at 5 Years of Age Predict Psychiatric Diagnoses at a Later Age?

“…Low-level parental occupation (Campbell, 1995;Kalff et al, 2001a), family size (Williams et al, 1990), race (Costello et al, 1996), family structure (Velez et al, 1989), low maternal age at delivery (Orlebeke et al, 1998), and maternal depression (Lavigne et al, 1998) are important family-related risk factors. Although the environment in which a child grows up is a potential risk factor for behavioral problems (Kalff et al, 2001b), little is known about its influence on DSM-based diagnoses (Hermanns and Leu, 1998). Data were collected during a longitudinal population study in the south of the Netherlands, titled the Study of Attention Disorders in Maastricht (SAM), that used a two-stage design (Kalff et al, 2001a;Kroes et al, 2001).…”