Socioeconomic differences in the development of self-rated health amongst adolescents: Results from a study in the Western Denmark – the VestLiv study

Background
While the existence of social inequality in health in childhood
as well as amongst adults is well established, research
of mechanisms underlying this inequality is still sparse. This
study reports on the development of self-rated health,
perceived stress and depressive symptoms from age 15 to
18 years in a cohort study of Danish adolescents. The aim was
to study predictors for health change among children with
different social background.
Methods
Information from a birth cohort study of all adolescents born
in 1989 (n = 3058) living in Ringkoebing County, Denmark
was collected from questionnaires in 2004 and 2007. 2140
participants answered in 2007 (response rate 61%).
Information on the social background of the participants
(e.g. household income, parents’ highest education etc) was
derived from a national register. For the analysis three variables
indicating the change in the three health indicators was
computed by subtracting the 2007 levels of the variables from
the levels experienced in 2004.
Results
Self-rated health was slightly worsened [–0.235; 95% confidence
interval (CI) –0.275 to –0.195] and the number of
depressive symptoms increased (–1.17; 95% CI –1.27 to –1.04)
while perceived stress on average remained stable. Children
of parents’ with the longest education had significantly
worse development of all three health indicators compared
with children of parents’ with primary school education.
Participants who reduced their levels of physical exercise had a
significant decrease in self-rated health from age 15 to 18 years.
Conclusions
Self-rated health, the number of depressive symptoms and
levels of perceived stress changed to the worse among Danish
adolescents from age 15 to 18 years. Changes in physical
exercise were found to contribute to the deterioration of selfrated
health. This result stresses the importance of preventing
adolescents from reducing their level of physical exercise.