Gonneke W J M Stevens

Utrecht University | UU · Utrecht Centre for Child and Adolescent Studies (CAS)

There is substantial evidence that adolescent mental health has deteriorated considerably since the early 2010s across many countries, and much more strongly among girls than boys. This is probably due to a combination of societal changes that strongly influenced the lives of adolescents. The societal changes include the rise of social media and of...

Purpose. Building on research suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic may have led to an exacerbation of deteriorating trends in mental health among adolescents, this paper examined trends in adolescents' psychological and somatic complaints across 35 countries from 2010 to 2022, and tested trends in sociodemographic inequalities in these outcomes be...

Little is known about whether prenatal green space exposure contributes to mental health later in life. Using data from a Dutch cohort (TRAILS; n=1,476), we assessed associations between prenatal (1989-1991) green space exposure and four mental health outcomes, namely externalizing problems, internalizing problems, tobacco use, and alcohol use, sel...

Introduction Exposure to family risk factors increases adolescents' chances of attaining a lower educational level. However, some adolescents attain a high educational level despite being exposed to family risk factors such as a lower parental socioeconomic status (SES) or receiving less family support. Method Using data from the Dutch TRAILS coho...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic and related measures to control the spread of the virus have negatively impacted adolescent mental health. However, the pandemic may have been more consequential for the mental health of some adolescents than others. Little is known about the heterogeneity in mental health responses to the pandemic among adolescents...

Previous research has reported both positive and negative associations between school socioeconomic status (SES) and internalizing problems among adolescents. Little is known about cross-national differences in this association, as well as potential mediators and moderators. Therefore, this study investigated this association using representative c...

Relatively little is known about which competencies adolescents need to experience intergenerational social mobility. We investigated if intelligence, effortful control, assertiveness, and peer competence at age 11 was associated with upward or downward mobility at age 26, utilizing data from the TRAILS study ( N = 2229; age T1 = 11.1 ( SD = 0.55);...

Adolescent residential mobility can be a stressful life event, potentially aggravating internalizing or externalizing problems. However, the longitudinal effects of residential mobility are understudied and may be context-dependent. This study investigates the longitudinal associations between adolescent residential mobility and internalizing and e...

This study aimed to assess differences between other-sex attracted and same- and both-sex attracted adolescents in profiles of peer and family social support, online contacts, and preferences for online communication. Data stem from the 2017 Dutch "Health and Behavior in School-Aged Children" (HBSC) survey (N = 6,823; 4.0% same- and both-sex attrac...

Adolescent mental health and life satisfaction are grounded in social and economic factors. However, studies investigating these relations across European and Asian contexts, using identical questionnaires, are scarce. The 2017/18 Health Behaviour of School-aged Children (HBSC) study conducted with 4,168 Dutch adolescents ( Mage 13.0 years) and 1,9...

Early sexual intercourse initiation has been associated with immediate and long-term risks, which makes the study of trends in sexual initiation an important topic for policy makers. This study investigated trends over time in reported sexual initiation among 15-year-olds across 33 countries between 2010-2018. In addition, we examined if there were...

Research on the social determinants of Problematic Social Media Use (PSMU) among adolescents is scant and focused on proximal contexts and interpersonal relationships. This study examines the relation of PSMU with economic inequality, measured at country, school and individual levels. It also evaluated the moderating role of family and peer support...

The Family Affluence Scale (FAS) is a widely used and validated instrument to measure adolescents’ socioeconomic status (SES). It is plausible that the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting social and economic changes have affected the capacity of the six-item FAS-III to measure adolescent SES, particularly the holiday and computer items. Using data from...

This study examined the relationship between family wealth and school dropout among vocational education students ( n = 1,231; mean age=17.81). It investigated whether (1) family affluence and adolescents’ own perceptions and experiences of their family wealth (i.e., perceived family wealth, financial scarcity) predict dropout, (2) adolescents’ civ...

Purpose: Few studies examine whether and how heterosexist norms in schools might influence disparities in mental health between sexual minority and heterosexual adolescents. Addressing this gap, we study disparities in life satisfaction, psychosomatic complaints, and emotional problems between same/both-sex attracted and other-sex attracted adolesc...

Background: Cross-sectional studies have found associations between neighbourhood environments and adolescent mental health, but the few longitudinal studies mainly focused on single exposure-based analyses and rarely assessed the mental health associations with environmental changes. Objectives: We assessed longitudinal within- and between-pers...

Little is known about societal processes that contribute to changes in adolescent mental health problems. This study aims to fill this gap using data from the Health Behavior in School-aged Children study between 2002 and 2018 (ncountries = 43, nindividuals = 680,269, Mage = 14.52 (SD = 1.06), 51.04% female), supplemented with other international d...

Introduction Before coronavirus disease (covid‐19), adolescents from a lower socioeconomic status (SES) background tend to have less positive future orientations, receive less parental support, and have a weaker sense of control than adolescents from a higher SES background. The covid‐19 pandemic has potentially increased the socioeconomic gaps in...

Differing theoretical indications suggest that immigrant adolescents’ perceptions of family support will either be lower or higher than those of their non-immigrant peers. To unravel this inconsistency, current cross-national study examines family support differences between first- and second-generation immigrant and non-immigrant adolescents. It a...

To assess self-reported quantity and quality of sleep in Dutch children with a chronic condition compared to healthy controls and to the recommended hours of sleep for youth. Sleep quantity and quality were analyzed in children with a chronic condition (cystic fibrosis, chronic kidney disease, congenital heart disease, (auto-)immune disease, and me...

Background Adolescents growing up with a chronic condition might experience more social vulnerabilities compared to their healthy peers as an indirect result of their conditions. This can lead to a relatedness need frustration for these adolescents. Consequently, they might spend more time playing video games compared to their peers. Research shows...

Few studies have explored the contribution of family and school factors to the association between ADHD symptoms and lower education. Possibly, having more ADHD symptoms contributes to poorer family functioning and less social support, and consequently a lower educational level (i.e., mediation). Moreover, the negative effects of ADHD symptoms on e...

The social gradient in adolescent mental health is well established: adolescents' socioeconomic status is negatively associated with their mental health. However, despite changes in social cognition during adolescence, little is known about whether social cognitions mediate this gradient. Therefore, this study tested this proposed mediational path...

Although parental overprotection is theorized to have lasting negative effects throughout a child’s life, there is limited empirical evidence available on its long-term significance on adolescent well-being. This preregistered, three-wave longitudinal study investigated the association of maternal and paternal perceived overprotection in early adol...

Purpose To assess self-reported quantity and quality of sleep in Dutch children with a chronic condition compared to healthy controls, compared to the recommended hours of sleep for youth. Methods Sleep quantity and quality were analyzed in children with a chronic condition (cystic fibrosis, chronic kidney disease, congenital heart disease, (auto-...

Young minority men from low-income neighbourhoods are often perceived as a uniform, disaffected group with antipathy towards mainstream education and occupations, while their own experiences are generally overlooked. Through in-depth interviews, we investigated how 14 minority young men (aged 16-23) from low-income neighbourhoods experience and nav...

Purpose Few researchers have explained disparities in mental health between sexual minority and heterosexual adolescents by focusing on structural forms of stigma as, for instance, heterosexist school or classroom norms. Addressing this gap, our paper aimed to study disparities in life satisfaction, psychosomatic complaints, and emotional problems...

Background Higher family affluence is associated with healthier behaviours in adolescents, but the strength of this association varies across countries. Differences in social mobility at the country-level, i.e. the extent to which adolescents develop a different socioeconomic status (SES) than their parents, may partially explain why the associatio...

Trust is crucial to the public’s compliance with policies and rules released by governments, particularly in times of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. However, it remains unclear whether and to what extent late adolescents’ interpersonal and institutional trust fluctuated from the pre-COVID-19 pandemic to the lasting phase of the C...

Higher family affluence is associated with healthier behaviours in adolescents, but the strength of this association varies across countries. Differences in social mobility at the country-level, i.e. the extent to which adolescents develop a different socioeconomic status (SES) than their parents, may partially explain why the association between f...

Aims Previous research has shown mixed results (positive, negative or no effects) regarding socio-economic disparities in adolescent drunkenness. This study investigates whether family affluence is differently associated with frequency of adolescent drunkenness in traditional countries, at a later diffusion of innovation adopter stage according to...

This study examined socioeconomic disparities in changes in adolescent mental health between fall 2019 (pre‐COVID‐19), spring 2020 (initial COVID‐19 phase), and fall 2020 (prevailing COVID‐19 phase). Using data from 1,429 adolescents (Mage = 17.9) from tertiary vocational schools in the Netherlands with n=386 participating in all three waves, linea...

Since the beginning of 2020, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and its lockdowns have changed the current lives of young people drastically. Given the importance of future orientations for young people’s mental well-being, it is important to investigate if and how this lockdown affected young people’s future orientations. In this study, 34 Dutch y...

This study examined associations between characteristics of the residential neighbourhood and the school and adolescent mental health, including the moderating role of family socioeconomic status (SES) and family support. Nationally representative Dutch data from adolescents aged 12–16 (N = 6422) were analysed through cross-classified multilevel mo...

Trust is crucial to the public’s compliance with policies and rules released by governments, particularly in times of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. However, it remains unclear whether and to what extent late adolescents’ interpersonal and institutional trust fluctuated from the pre-COVID-19 pandemic to the lasting phase of the C...

Many adolescents worldwide (indirectly) grow up with a chronic disease, which may impact their functioning and wellbeing. The objective of this study is to assess whether adolescents with a (family member with a) chronic disease differ from their healthy counterparts in terms of psychosocial functioning. Data from the Dutch 2013 HBSC-survey were us...

Purpose. The social gradient in adolescent mental health is well established: adolescents’ socioeconomic status (SES) is negatively associated with their mental health. However, de-spite changes in social cognition during adolescence, and theory and evidence that SES, so-cial cognitions, and adolescent mental health are associated, little is known...

Social causation and health-related selection may contribute to educational differences in adolescents’ attention problems and externalizing behaviour. The social causation hypothesis posits that the social environment influences adolescents’ mental health. Conversely, the health-related selection hypothesis proposes that poor mental health predict...

Using four waves of longitudinal data collected in 2015–2019 from 1419 Dutch adolescents (Mage = 12.5, 45.9% female, 21.9% immigrant), this study identified trajectories of problematic social media use (SMU) in parallel with trajectories of SMU frequency. Latent class growth analysis identified two subgroups with relatively high levels of problemat...

Using four waves of longitudinal data collected in 2015–2019 from 1419 Dutch adolescents (Mage = 12.5, 45.9% female, 21.9% immigrant), this study identified trajectories of problematic social media use (SMU) in parallel with trajectories of SMU frequency. Latent class growth analysis identified two subgroups with relatively high levels of problemat...

Purpose A social gradient in adolescent mental health exists: adolescents with higher socioeconomic status (SES) have fewer mental health problems than their peers with lower SES. Little is known about whether adolescents’ societal beliefs play a role in this social gradient. Belief in a just world (BJW) may be a mediator or moderator of the social...

Background Social causation as well as health-related selection may contribute to educational gradients in adolescents' attention problems (AP) and externalizing behaviour (EB). From past studies it is unclear which of these mechanisms predominates, as AP and EB have the potential to disrupt adolescents' educational careers, but may also be affecte...

Background and aims: There is currently no cross-national validation of a scale that measures problematic social media use (SMU). The present study investigated and compared the psychometric properties of the Social Media Disorder (SMD)-scale among young adolescents from different countries. Design: Validation study. Setting and participants:...

The present study examined five possible explanations for the mixed findings on the association between adolescents' social media use (SMU) intensity and wellbeing. Particularly, it investigated whether the association between SMU intensity and life satisfaction depended on (1) the type of SMU activity the adolescent engaged in, (2) the (non)linear...

Background Social causation and health-related selection may contribute to educational gradients in adolescents’ attention problems (AP) and externalizing behaviour (EB). From past studies it is unclear which of these mechanisms predominates, as AP and EB have the potential to interfere with educational performance, but may also be affected by diff...

Although previous research established a positive association between perceived social support and adolescent life satisfaction, little is known about the relative importance of different sources of support for adolescent life satisfaction and cross-country variations in this respect. Using large-scale representative samples from the 2017/18 Health...

Large-scale validation research on instruments measuring problematic social media use (SMU) is scarce. Using a nationally representative sample of 6,626 Dutch adolescents aged 12 to 16 years, the present study examined the psychometric properties of the nine-item Social Media Disorder scale. The structural validity was solid, because one underlying...

Aims: This study investigated gender and educational differences in trends in schoolwork pressure between 2001 and 2017 in nationally representative samples of Dutch adolescents in secondary education. Methods: Data from five surveys of the Dutch Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study were used. Results: Across the surveys, an increase in...

Large-scale validation research on instruments measuring problematic social media use (SMU) is scarce. Using a nationally representative sample of 6,626 Dutch adolescents aged 12 to 16, the present study examined the psychometric properties of the nine-item Social Media Disorder-scale. The structural validity was solid, because one underlying facto...

This study examined socioeconomic disparities in changes in late adolescents’ mental health between fall 2019, spring 2020, and fall 2020. Using data from 1,429 adolescents (Mage = 17.9) from tertiary vocational schools in the Netherlands, linear and latent basis growth curve models were assessed and multigroup analyses conducted. Results showed a...

Previous research is inconclusive as to whether having an immigration background acts as a risk factor for poor mental health in adolescents, and furthermore, what contribution the social context in which adolescents grow up may make. To address these questions, the current study uses an integrative resilience framework to investigate the associati...

Social media have become increasingly integrated into the daily lives of adolescents. There are concerns about the potential detrimental effects of adolescents’ social media use (SMU) on their mental health. Using a three-wave longitudinal study among 2,109 secondary school adolescents (Mage = 13.1, SDage = 0.8), the present study examined whether...

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has changed the lives of young people all around the world drastically. Because young people’s future orientations are shaped by current experiences, COVID-19 and its social and economic consequences may impact young people’s future orientations. This study explored whether and how COVID-19 has affected y...

Since the growth of research into neighbourhood effects on young people’s health in the 1980s, there have been major societal changes and scientific methodological advancements. In this systematic review we will, therefore, discuss the recent (>2009) literature on the association between neighbourhood deprivation and young people’s (0-19 years old)...

Purpose. A social gradient in adolescent mental health exists: adolescents with higher so-cioeconomic status (SES) have fewer mental health problems than their peers with lower SES. Little is known about whether adolescents’ societal beliefs play a role in this social gradient. Belief in a just world (BJW) may be a mediator or moderator of the soci...

In some Scandinavian countries, the United Kingdom and the United States, there is evidence of a dramatic decline in adolescent emotional wellbeing, particularly among girls. It is not clear to what extent this decline can be generalised to other high-income countries. This study examines trends over time (2005-2009-2013-2017) in adolescent wellbei...

Background Previous research established a positive association between national income inequality and socioeconomic inequalities in adolescent health, but little is known about the extent to which national level inequalities in accumulated financial resources (i.e. wealth) are associated with these health inequalities. Therefore, we examined the a...

Many adolescents struggle with adequately assessing their weight-status, often leading to unnecessary weight-related interventions or preventing necessary ones. The prevalence of weight-status over- and underestimation differs considerably cross-nationally, suggesting that individual weight-status assessment is informed by cross-nationally differin...

Purpose Adolescents with higher socioeconomic status (SES) report better mental health. The strength of the association—the “social gradient in adolescent mental health”—varies across countries, with stronger associations in countries with greater income inequality. Country-level meritocratic beliefs (beliefs that people get what they deserve) may...

Purpose Previous research has shown inconsistent time trends in adolescent mental well-being, but potential underlying mechanisms for such trends are yet to be examined. This study investigates cross-national time trends in adolescent mental well-being (psychosomatic health complaints and life satisfaction) in mainly European countries and the exte...

Purpose Intersectionality theory highlights the importance of the interplay of multiple social group memberships in shaping individual mental well-being. This article investigates elements of adolescent mental well-being (life dissatisfaction and psychosomatic complaints) from an intersectional perspective. It tests mental well-being consequences o...

Purpose This study examined (1) whether intense and problematic social media use (SMU) were independently associated with adolescent well-being; (2) whether these associations varied by the country-level prevalence of intense and problematic SMU; and (3) whether differences in the country-level prevalence of intense and problematic SMU were related...

Purpose Although previous research has established a positive association between national income inequality and socioeconomic inequalities in adolescent health, very little is known about the extent to which national-level wealth inequalities (i.e., accumulated financial resources) are associated with these inequalities in health. Therefore, this...

Purpose: European studies demonstrated that immigrant adolescents are at a higher risk for mental health problems than native adolescents, but little is known about the role of socioeconomic status (SES) and gender in this association. This study examined to what extent differences in the mental health problems of non-western immigrant and native...