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Contribution title Early food insecurity, parental social support and youth mental health trajectories
Contribution code D2.151
Authors
  1. Eileen Xu Division of Psychiatry, Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK Presenter
  2. Alex Kwong
  3. Stephen Lawrie Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh
  4. Heather Whalley
Form of presentation Poster
Topic
  • T45 - Birth Cohorts and longitudinal studies
Abstract Aims: Food insecurity (FI) occurs when individuals or households lack access to sufficient safe, nutritious food to meet dietary requirements, and has negative impacts on children’s health, educational attainment and social development. Although FI is closely linked to income and socioeconomic status, alleviating FI may still have direct benefits for children experiencing poverty. This work investigated 10-year mental health trajectories following FI at age 5 and explored whether greater parental social support prior to FI may have a protective effect.

Methods: Data comprised N = 2,125 children (mean ages 4.8 – 14.6) from the Growing Up in Scotland birth cohort study. Longitudinal growth curve models were used to estimate trajectories of Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) subscales for conduct, emotional, hyperactivity and peer problems. Models were stratified by FI at age 5 (no FI, mid-severity, high-severity) and by parental social support at age 4 (“Enough”, “Not enough”), then adjusted for sex, income, area deprivation and maternal depression.

Results and Conclusions: High-severity FI was associated with increased trajectories for all SDQ domains from age 5 (vs. no FI). Mid-severity FI also showed increased emotional (age 6 – 12) and peer problem (age 9 – 11, 14 – 15) trajectories. Differences between high-severity and mid-severity trajectories emerged for emotional (age 5 – 10), conduct (age 6 – 14) and hyperactivity (age 6 – 14) problems. Greater parental social support in mid-severity FI led to decreases in emotional (age 7 – 11) and peer (age 8 – 12) problems, though not for high-severity FI. Overall, these results point to potential dose-response effects of childhood FI that persist into early adolescence, and a possible short-term protective effect of parental social support in mid-severity FI.