This study provides one of the most comprehensive examinations to date of how different types of mental health difficulties – internalising (e.g. anxiety, sadness) and externalising (e.g. impulsivity, defiance) – manifest across childhood and adolescence, and how these patterns are shaped by early life socioeconomic disadvantage.
Socioeconomic inequalities in children’s mental health are already evident by age five and persist throughout childhood and adolescence, according to analysis led by researchers from the University of Liverpool.
Researchers analysed data from more than 15,000 children born around the year 2000 and tracked through to age 17, using parent-reported measures. The team, including academics from the University of Liverpool and the University of Glasgow, found that while different types of mental health difficulties vary by age and sex, the gap between more and less advantaged children remains strikingly stable across time.
Dr Yu Wei Chua, lead author and Research Associate in the Health Inequalities and Policy Research Group at the University of Liverpool, and NIHR Researcher at the Oxford Health Biomedical Research Consortium said: “Our findings show that the mental health gap is already firmly in place by age five, regardless of whether we use income or maternal education to index socioeconomic disadvantage.”
Key findings include:
Although developmental patterns and sex differences in mental health were evident, the persistence of inequality suggests that efforts to address disparities need to begin in the early years and continue throughout the school-age period.