ArticleSSM - population health2021
The gender gap in adolescent mental health: A cross-national investigation of 566,829 adolescents across 73 countries.
Article in SSM - population health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 244 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
244 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Mental health literacy interventions for female adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Changes in mental health levels among Chinese athletes from 1995 to 2023.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Pooled it
- The burden of psychological distress and unhealthy dietary behaviours among 222,401 school-going adolescents from 61 countries.Scientific reports · 2023Pooled it
- Cost-Effectiveness of an Economic Empowerment and Family Intervention on Mental Health Among School-Going Adolescent Girls in Uganda, 2017‒2022.American journal of public health · 2025Trial
- Health-related quality of life and self-reported health status in adolescents with chronic health conditions before transfer of care to adult health care: an international cohort study.BMC pediatrics · 2024Trial
- Combining Asset Accumulation and Multifamily Group Intervention to Improve Mental Health for Adolescent Girls: A Cluster-Randomized Trial in Uganda.The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine · 2024Trial
- The impact of poverty-reduction intervention on child mental health mediated by family relations: Findings from a cluster-randomized trial in Uganda.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2023Trial
- Economic Empowerment, HIV Risk Behavior, and Mental Health Among School-Going Adolescent Girls in Uganda: Longitudinal Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial, 2017‒2022.American journal of public health · 2023Trial
- Least Equal When Most Teachable: The Biodevelopmental Learning Opportunities and Outcomes Model of Gender Differences in Sexuality.Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc · 2026Review
- Did the COVID-19 pandemic impact on time trends in self-poisoning in youth? A sex-specific national register-based interrupted time-series analysis in Sweden.The British journal of clinical psychology · 2026Article
- Piloting Patient Reported Outcome Measures in Cleft Lip and Palate Services in Aotearoa New Zealand.The Cleft palate-craniofacial journal : official publication of the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association · 2026Article
- Hunger as an uncontroversial predictor of poor adolescent mental health: evidence from a multiverse analysis of 410,213 adolescents across 79 countries.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Article
- Long-term labour market outcomes of anorexia nervosa - the Northern Finland birth cohort 1986.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Mapping emotion regulation profiles in adolescence and examining their associations with mental health outcomes.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2026Article
- The relationship between unintentional injury in childhood and risk of mental health problems in adolescence: An analysis of the UK Millennium Cohort Study unintentional injury in childhood and mental health in adolescence.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Mental health measures among adolescents in 12 low- and middle-income countries: Measurement invariance and cross-sectional analyses of Disrupting Harm survey data.JCPP advances · 2026Article
- Cumulative effect of multiple health and social factors on adolescent mental well-being: a cross-sectional study in Catalonia.Child and adolescent mental health · 2026Article
- Article
- Adolescent Psychosocial Profiles and Early Cyberbullying Histories: Longitudinal Associations and Patterns of Change Across Development.Journal of adolescence · 2026Article
- The Impact of Societal Challenges on Mental Health Conditions: Implications for Research and Psychotherapy?Clinical psychology in Europe · 2026Article
184 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mental ill-health is a leading cause of disease burden worldwide. While women suffer from greater levels of mental health disorders, it remains unclear whether this gender gap differs systematically across regions and/or countries, or across the different dimensions of mental health. We analysed 2018 data from 566,829 adolescents across 73 countries for 4 mental health outcomes: psychological distress, life satisfaction, eudaemonia, and hedonia. We examine average gender differences and distributions for each of these outcomes as well as country-level associations between each outcome and purported determinants at the country level: wealth (GDP per capita), inequality (Gini index), and societal indicators of gender inequality (GII, GGGI, and GSNI). We report four main results: 1) The gender gap in mental health in adolescence is largely ubiquitous cross-culturally, with girls having worse average mental health; 2) There is considerable cross-national heterogeneity in the size of the gender gap, with the direction reversed in a minority of countries; 3) Higher GDP per capita is associated with worse average mental health and a larger gender gap across all mental health outcomes; and 4) more gender equal countries have larger gender gaps across all mental health outcomes. Taken together, our findings suggest that while the gender gap appears largely ubiquitous, its size differs considerably by region, country, and dimension of mental health. Findings point to the hitherto unrealised complex nature of gender disparities in mental health and possible incongruence between expectations and reality in high gender equal countries.
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