Twenty-Five Years of National-Level Research on Adolescent and Young Adult Mental Health in the United States

Abstract

The longitudinal, population-level, biosocial data in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) have elucidated the developmental course of mental health across early stages of the life course. This data set also has been invaluable for documenting and unpacking disparities in these developmental patterns by race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, immigration, and sexuality. Reflecting the larger focus of this special supplement on Add Health as a tool for connecting adolescence to adulthood, this article reviews Add Health research since 2000 based on a search of key mental health terms, primarily describing patterns of two key markers of psychopathology (depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation) that were consistently measured across waves. It situates these patterns from adolescence into adulthood within the developmental ecology organized by the proximate settings of everyday life, the larger social structures organized by a highly stratified society, and the relations of these ecological and structural forces to biological processes. Major foci are the dynamic nature of mental health across the life course and the ways that ecological and physiological influences on mental health differ by group identity and social position.

Keywords: Adolescence; Inequality; Mental health; Young adulthood.