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Ethnicity, socio-economic status and self-harm in Swedish youth: a national cohort study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2008

B. Jablonska ,
L. Lindberg ,
F. Lindblad  and
A. Hjern
B. Jablonska*
Affiliation:
Stockholm Centre for Public Health, Sweden
L. Lindberg
Affiliation:
Stockholm Centre for Public Health, Sweden
F. Lindblad
Affiliation:
Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Sweden Department of Neuroscience, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University Hospital of Uppsala, Sweden
A. Hjern
Affiliation:
Centre for Epidemiology, National Board of Health and Welfare, Stockholm, Sweden Department of Children's and Women's Health, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
*
*Address for correspondence: B. Jablonska, B.Sc., Stockholm Centre for Public Health, Stockholm County Council, Box 17533, SE-118 91, Stockholm, Sweden. (Email: beata.jablonska@sll.se)
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Abstract

Background

Previous studies have shown an elevated risk for self-harm in adolescents from ethnic minorities. However, potential contributions to this risk from socio-economic factors have rarely been addressed. The main aim of this article was to investigate any such effects.

Method

A national cohort of 1009 157 children born during 1973–1982 was followed prospectively from 1991 to 2002 in Swedish national registers. Multivariate Cox analyses of proportional hazards were used to estimate the relative risk of hospital admission for self-harm. Parental country/region of birth was used as proxy for ethnicity.

Results

Youth with two parents born outside Sweden (except those from Southern Europe) had higher age- and gender-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of self-harm than the majority population (HR 1.6–2.3). The HRs decreased for all immigrant groups when socio-economic factors were accounted for but remained significantly higher for immigrants from Finland and Western countries and for youth with one Swedish-born and one foreign-born parent.

Conclusions

Socio-economic factors explain much of the variation by parental country of birth of hospital admissions for self-harm in youth in Sweden.

Keywords

Adolescentsethnicityself-harm behavioursocio-economic statusyoung adults
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , January 2009 , pp. 87 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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