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Life Events and Depressive Symptoms in African American Adolescents: Do Ecological Domains and Timing of Life Events Matter?

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Abstract

Considerable research has documented associations between adverse life events and internalizing symptoms in adolescents, but much of this research has focused on the number of events experienced, with less attention to the ecological context or timing of events. This study examined life events in three ecological domains relevant to adolescents (i.e., family, peers, themselves) as predictors of the course of depressive symptoms among a community epidemiologically defined sample of 419 (47.2% females) urban African American adolescents. Given that youth depressive symptoms change over time, grade level was examined as a moderator. For males, the strength of associations between life events happening to participants, family life events, and peer life events and depressive symptoms did not change from grades 6–9. For females, the strength of the association between peer life events and depressive symptoms did not change over time, but the strength of associations between life events happening to participants and family life events and females’ depressive symptoms decreased over time. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the children, parents, and teachers who participated in this study. We thank Dr. Philip Wirtz from The George Washington University for his help in the preparation of this paper. This work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH057005) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA11796) to Nicholas Ialongo, and a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to Sharon Lambert (5R01MH078995-03).

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, George Washington University, 2125 G Street NW, Washington, DC, 20052, USA

    Yadira M. Sanchez & Sharon F. Lambert

  2. Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 624 N. Broadway, 8th Fl., Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

    Nicholas S. Ialongo

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  1. Yadira M. Sanchez
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  2. Sharon F. Lambert
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  3. Nicholas S. Ialongo
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Correspondence to Yadira M. Sanchez.

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Sanchez, Y.M., Lambert, S.F. & Ialongo, N.S. Life Events and Depressive Symptoms in African American Adolescents: Do Ecological Domains and Timing of Life Events Matter?. J Youth Adolescence 41, 438–448 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-011-9689-8

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