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


METHODS
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.
Jablonska
B
B
Stockholm Centre for Public Health, Sweden. beata.jablonska@sll.se
Lindberg
L
L
Lindblad
F
F
Hjern
A
A
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D000349:Africa / Q000208:ethnology; D001208:Asia / Q000208:ethnology; D044362:Australasia / Q000208:ethnology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005060:Europe / Q000208:ethnology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007843:Latin America / Q000208:ethnology; D008297:Male; D009656:North America / Q000208:ethnology; D010290:Parents; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D016728:Self-Injurious Behavior / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D017678:Sex Distribution; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology