Improving the mental health of young children in Toronto: Needs assessment and literature review

Overview

Abstract (English)

As part of a report for Toronto Public Health and the Toronto Child and Youth Action Committee, the authors conducted an analysis using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) for the purpose of identifying various individual, family and neighbourhood characteristics associated with different levels of mental health among Ontario and Canadian children. The mental health statuses of approximately 13,500 four-to-eleven-year-old Canadian children were assessed, based on the responses to various survey questions posed to the children’s parents and teachers. The parents and teachers of the respondents were asked to note the occurrence of the children’s problem behaviours within a specific period of time and to rate their intensity or severity. These individual behaviours were then grouped into separate problem areas, such as depressed mood or aggressiveness, and the responses for each behaviour were added together to produce a scale score. The results of the NLSCY data indicate that emotional-behavioural problems in children are often associated with poorer social relationships, lower academic performance and reduced physical functioning. Although it is known that these characteristics often “run together” in children, it is impossible to ascertain whether emotional-behavioural problems influence these characteristics, or if these attributes influence the occurrence of emotional-behavioural problems, or if these attributes and emotional-behavioural problems tend to evolve together over time. findings from the NLSCY indicate that child emotional-behavioural problems appear to be associated with both family and neighbourhood characteristics, as well as the children’s individual characteristics. Exposure to coercive parenting styles, maternal depression and family dysfunction all seem to be linked with child emotional-behavioural problems. Levels of problem behaviour are also higher among children in lone-parent families, families living in rented dwellings and families with annual incomes that fall below Statistics Canada’s low income cut-offs. In addition, 1996 census tract information, augmented to the NLSCY data, indicates that parents and teachers from neighbourhoods with higher concentrations of low income families, lone parent families and rented dwellings reported higher levels of child emotional-behavioural problems. However, influence within the child, such as gender, age, intelligence, and interpersonal skills account for the largest portion of emotional-behavioural problems among Canadian children. The importance of these findings is that they provide evidence to substantiate the authors’ recommendations for interventions to provide treatment and promote prevention of emotional-behavioural problems among children in Toronto.

Abstract (French)

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