Dataset Information

Association of Early-Life Exposure to Income Inequality With Bullying in Adolescence in 40 Countries.

ABSTRACT:

Importance

While the association between income inequality and interpersonal violence has been attributed to the psychosocial effects of inequality (eg, increased class anxiety, reduced social capital), longitudinal evidence for this pathway is limited by a reliance on small ecological studies and cross-sectional data. The developmental consequences of early-life inequality for subsequent involvement in violence have not been investigated.

Objective

To examine the association between income inequality during infancy and early childhood and adolescents' involvement in bullying others, experiences of being bullied, or both.

Design, setting, and participants

The Health Behavior in School-aged Children survey study was conducted in European and North American schools. This analysis used individual data on bullying (being bullied, bullying others, or both) from 6 consecutive school-based surveys of 11-year-old to 15-year-old students carried out in 40 countries between February 1994 to March 2014. Data analysis occurred from March 2018 to January 2019.

Exposure

National Gini indices of income inequality for every year of life spanning a 35-year period (1979 to 2014).

Main outcomes and measures

Being bullied, bullying others, and both outcomes were measured using a common definition and questions adapted from the Bully-Victim Questionnaire and translated to many languages.

Results

The sample included 425?938 male students and 448?265 female students from 162 country-survey year groups in 29?196 schools. Linear regression coefficients indicated that early-life income inequality from birth to 4 years was positively associated with being bullied (male students: linear regression coefficient, 18.26 [95% CI, 11.04-25.47]; P?Conclusions and relevanceBeing bullied is associated with early-life exposure to income inequality. Although further research on the underlying pathways is needed to guide intervention, these results suggest temporality in the association between inequality and violence and suggest that growing up in areas of high income inequality is associated with victimization in adolescence.

SUBMITTER: Elgar FJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6515581 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Association of Early-Life Exposure to Income Inequality With Bullying in Adolescence in 40 Countries.

Elgar Frank J FJ Gariepy Genevieve G Dirks Melanie M Walsh Sophie D SD Molcho Michal M Cosma Alina A Malinowska-Cieslik Marta M Donnelly Peter D PD Craig Wendy W

JAMA pediatrics 20190701 7

<h4>Importance</h4>While the association between income inequality and interpersonal violence has been attributed to the psychosocial effects of inequality (eg, increased class anxiety, reduced social capital), longitudinal evidence for this pathway is limited by a reliance on small ecological studies and cross-sectional data. The developmental consequences of early-life inequality for subsequent involvement in violence have not been investigated.<h4>Objective</h4>To examine the association betw ...[more]

PMID: 31081857

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Project description:BackgroundRecent studies suggest that greater exposure to natural vegetation, or "green space" is associated with lower diabetes risk, possibly through increasing physical activity. However, there is limited research on green space and insulin resistance in youth. We hypothesized greater green space at early-life sensitive time periods would be associated with lower insulin resistance in youth.MethodsWe used data from Project Viva (N = 460), a pre-birth cohort study that recruited pregnant women in eastern Massachusetts, 1999-2002, and followed offspring into adolescence. We defined residential green space exposure at infancy (median age - 1.1 years), early childhood (3.2 years), mid-childhood (7.7 years), and early adolescence (12.8 years), using 30 m resolution Landsat satellite imagery to estimate the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index [NDVI]. Our main outcome was early adolescence estimated insulin resistance (HOMA-IR). We used multiple imputation to account for missing data and multiple linear regression models adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, parental education, household income, and neighborhood median household income.ResultsThe highest green space tertile had the highest percentage of white participants (85%), college-educated mothers (87%) and fathers (85%), and households with income higher than US$70,000 (86%). Unadjusted models showed that participants living in the highest green space tertile at infancy had a 0.15 unit lower HOMA-IR (95% CI: -0.23, -0.06) in early adolescence, than those living in the lowest tertile. However, in adjusted models, we did not observe evidence of associations between green space from infancy to early adolescence and HOMA-IR in early adolescence, although some point estimates were in the hypothesized direction. For example, participants in the highest green space tertile in infancy had 0.03 units lower HOMA-IR (95%CI: -0.14, 0.08) than those living in the lowest tertile.ConclusionsExposure to green space at early life sensitive time periods was not associated with HOMA-IR in youth. Early-life longitudinal studies across diverse populations are needed to confirm or refute our results.

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Dataset Information

Association of Early-Life Exposure to Income Inequality With Bullying in Adolescence in 40 Countries.

Importance

Objective

Design, setting, and participants

Exposure

Main outcomes and measures

Results

Publications

Association of Early-Life Exposure to Income Inequality With Bullying in Adolescence in 40 Countries.

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