Live Poster Session: Zoom Link
Rebecca Lupkas
I am a sophomore from Lincoln, Massachusetts and a member of the women’s crew team at Wesleyan. In my free time I enjoy listening to music and spending time outside.
Abstract: Mental well-being as a child is important, as research in this area has shown that poor mental health at a young age can have lasting impacts. Data from the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics demonstrates that children affected by psychological conditions are associated with lower ability to work and make money as adults (Smith & Smith, 2010). This study contains data from Waves 1 and 5 of the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (ADDHEALTH). Wave 1 surveyed adolescents in grades 7-12 during the 1994-1995 school year, and Wave 5 surveyed the same people in 2016-2018. Fourteen questions from the ADDHEALTH, recorded on a scale from 0-3, were chosen to measure poor mental health based on the DSM-5 criteria for a major depressive episode. Responses were summed to create a quantitative score with higher scores reflecting more feelings related to poor mental health, and the score was collapsed into 4 categories. Income was estimated as a quantitative variable based on the midpoints of the thirteen categories the variable was recorded as. The results revealed that expected income for the group with the least symptoms of poor mental health is statistically significantly greater than the expected income for all other groups of mental health. Including sex in the regression changes the coefficients slightly but does not alter the overall conclusions.
QAC201Poster-3