Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Prevailing over Adversity: Factors Counteracting the Long-Term Negative Health Influences of Social and Material Disadvantages in Youth

Ylva B Almquist
* ORCID logo ,
Evelina Landstedt
,
Josephine Jackisch
,
Kristiina Rajaleid
,
Hugo Westerlund
,
Anne Hammarström
Version 1 : Received: 27 June 2018 / Approved: 28 June 2018 / Online: 28 June 2018 (05:10:36 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Almquist, Y.B.; Landstedt, E.; Jackisch, J.; Rajaleid, K.; Westerlund, H.; Hammarström, A. Prevailing over Adversity: Factors Counteracting the Long-Term Negative Health Influences of Social and Material Disadvantages in Youth. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15, 1842. Almquist, Y.B.; Landstedt, E.; Jackisch, J.; Rajaleid, K.; Westerlund, H.; Hammarström, A. Prevailing over Adversity: Factors Counteracting the Long-Term Negative Health Influences of Social and Material Disadvantages in Youth. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15, 1842.

Abstract

Disadvantaged circumstances in youth tend to translate into poor health development. Yet, the fact that this is not always the case has been seen as indicative of differential resilience. The current study highlights factors outside the context of the family with the potential to counteract the long-term negative influences of social and material adversity in adolescence on general health status. This study was based on two waves of questionnaire data from the Northern Swedish Cohort. From the wave in 1981 (age 16), indicators of social and material conditions as well as factors related to school, peers, and spare time, were derived. From the wave in 2008 (age 43), information about self-rated health was used. Ordinal logistic regression models (n=908) showed that adversity in youth was associated with poorer self-rated health in midlife among men and women alike, net of health status at baseline. However, having an advantaged situation with regard to school, peers, or spare time appeared to protect against the detrimental influences of disadvantaged circumstances in the family context on subsequent health. This suggests that health-promoting interventions may benefit from focusing on contexts outside the family in their effort to strengthen processes of resilience among disadvantaged youths.

Keywords

disadvantages; living conditions; longitudinal; resilience; self-rated health; youth

Subject

Public Health and Healthcare, Public, Environmental and Occupational Health

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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