The Impact of Neighborhood and Family Socioeconomic Status on Adolescents' Internalizing Symptoms: The Mediating Role of Pubertal Development Trajectory.

Abstract

Disadvantaged socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with elevated internalizing symptoms in adolescents and is potentially mediated by accelerated pubertal development. Neighborhood SES may have distinct effects beyond family influences, interacting with family SES to shape adolescents' development. The present study examines the combined effects of family and neighborhood SES on pubertal development trajectory and internalizing symptoms and explores the mediating role of pubertal trajectory. This study included 5560 early adolescents (46.51% female; aged 9-10 years at baseline; M_age = 9.48; SD = 0.51) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study across four annual assessments. Three pubertal development trajectories were identified: "early-onset with slow progression", "late-onset with rapid catch-up", and "late-onset with slow catch-up". The results revealed that accelerated pubertal trajectories mediated the association between multilevel SES disparities and internalizing symptoms. For adolescents from high-SES families, high neighborhood SES reduced the likelihood of early-onset and rapid catch-up trajectories, which were linked to fewer internalizing symptoms. However, for adolescents from low-SES families, higher neighborhood SES increased the likelihood of early-onset and rapid catch-up trajectories, which were associated with more internalizing symptoms. Sex differences were observed, with neighborhood SES predicting pubertal trajectories in males but not in females, and the rapid catch-up trajectory was associated with fewer anxious/depressed symptoms in males but more internalizing symptoms in females. This study emphasizes the crucial role of family and neighborhood SES disparities in shaping adolescent pubertal development, which in turn affects internalizing symptoms.