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ETD Abstract Container

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Neighborhood Context and Mental Health over the Early Life Course

Barr, Peter
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1435767539

Abstract Details

2015, Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, Sociology.
A rapidly growing body of literature emphasize the importance of place in regards to mental health. Specifically, the “neighborhood effects” literature has consistently linked aspects of neighborhood context to mental health outcomes, above and beyond individual-level factors. With few exceptions, the majority of this research has involved limited time spans, which prevents a full understanding of mental health as it is affected by neighborhood conditions over time. This dissertation incorporates a life course framework into the analysis of neighborhood context and its impact on long-term trajectories of mental health. Using all four waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), I model changes in depression and heavy episodic drinking using multilevel growth curve models. I also consider how certain aspects of neighborhoods interact with stressful individual experience. Specifically, I test to see whether the effect of exposure to violence on both depression and heavy drinking is moderated by neighborhood disorder. Results demonstrate that neighborhood context in adolescence has implications for long term patterns of depression and heavy episodic drinking, both through the effect living in these neighborhoods as well as the proximate conditions associated with living in highly disadvantaged and disordered neighborhoods. I also find that in certain instances, highly disordered neighborhoods make the mental health implications for being exposed to violence worse.
Matthew Lee, Dr. (Advisor)
Adrianne Frech, Dr. (Advisor)
Juan Xi, Dr. (Committee Member)
Robert Peralta, Dr. (Committee Member)
Richard Adams, Dr. (Committee Member)
William Lyons, Dr. (Committee Member)
186 p.
Mental Health; Sociology
neighborhoods; life course; mental health; longitudinal

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Barr, P. (2015). Neighborhood Context and Mental Health over the Early Life Course [Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1435767539

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Barr, Peter. Neighborhood Context and Mental Health over the Early Life Course. 2015. University of Akron, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1435767539.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Barr, Peter. "Neighborhood Context and Mental Health over the Early Life Course." Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1435767539

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

akron1435767539
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© 2015, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Neighborhood Context and Mental Health over the Early Life Course by Peter Barr is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Akron and OhioLINK.