A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Parental and family determinants of the Flynn effect

  2023. Kristiina Rajaleid, Denny Vågerö. Longitudinal and life course studies, 1-23

  Article

  Research about the Flynn effect, the secular rise in IQ, is heavily based on conscript data from successive male birth cohorts. This inevitably means that two distinct phenomena are mixed: fertility differences by IQ group ('compositional Flynn effect'), and any difference between parents and children ('within-family Flynn effect'). Both will influence trends in cognitive ability. We focused on the latter phenomenon, exploring changes in cognitive abilities during adolescence within one generation, and between two successive generations within the same family. We identified determinants and outcomes in three linked generations in the Stockholm Multigenerational Study. School and conscript data covered logical/numerical and verbal scores for mothers at age 13, fathers at 13 and 18, and their sons at 18. Raw scores, and change in raw scores, were used as outcomes in linear regressions. Both parents' abilities at 13 were equally important for sons' abilities at 18. Boys from disadvantaged backgrounds caught up with other boys during adolescence. Comparing fathers with sons, there appeared to be a positive Flynn effect in logical/numeric and verbal abilities. This was larger if the father had a working-class background or many siblings. A Flynn effect was only visible in families where the father had low general cognitive ability at 18. We conclude that there is a general improvement in logical/numeric and verbal skills from one generation to the next, primarily based on improvement in disadvantaged families. The Flynn effect in Sweden during the later 20th century appears to represent a narrowing between social categories.

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• Psychosocial School Conditions and Mental Wellbeing Among Mid-adolescents: Findings From the 2017/18 Swedish HBSC Study

  2023. Sara Brolin Låftman (et al.). International Journal of Public Health 67

  Article

  Objectives: To investigate mid-adolescent boys’ and girls’ experiences of school demands, teacher support, and classmate support, and explore the associations of these factors with mental wellbeing.

  Methods: Data were derived from the Swedish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study of 2017/18, with information collected among 1,418 students in grade 9 (∼15–16 years). School demands, teacher support, and classmate support were measured by indices based on three items each. Mental wellbeing was measured by the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (SWEMWBS). Linear regression analyses were performed.

  Results: Higher demands were associated with lower mental wellbeing. Conversely, mental wellbeing increased with greater teacher support and classmate support. Interactions between demands and the support variables showed that at the lowest levels of teacher and of classmate support, mental wellbeing was low and not associated with school demands. With increasing levels of teacher and classmate support, the overall level of mental wellbeing increased and revealed an inverse association between school demands and mental wellbeing.

  Conclusion: The study contributes with knowledge about how psychosocial conditions in school may hinder or enhance wellbeing among students.

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• Are there really no causal associations between childhood family income and subsequent outcomes?

  2022. Anders Ledberg, Kristiina Rajaleid, Bitte Modin. International Journal of Epidemiology 51 (6), 2027-2028

  Article

  We read with interest the recent paper by Sariaslan et al.1 investigating the associations between childhood family income and three outcomes observed later in life: psychiatric disorders, substance misuse and violent crime arrests. The paper contains a careful analysis of a large and relevant dataset of more than 650 000 individuals born in Finland in 1986–96, who were followed from age 15, when income was assessed, until 2017 or 2018. The authors use two types of analysis in the paper: one in which differences in the outcomes are accounted for by variability in income between families (henceforth between-family analysis) and one, the so-called sibling comparison, in which outcome differences are accounted for only by income variability within families (henceforth within-family analysis). In the between-family analysis, the authors find consistent associations between a number of related estimates of childhood family income and the three outcomes (e.g. Figure 2 in the paper). However, and this is the main finding of the paper, these associations between income and the three outcomes completely disappear in the within-family analysis. From this, the authors conclude that ‘[a]ssociations between childhood family income and subsequent risks … were not consistent with a causal interpretation’.

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• The Work Environment during Coronavirus Epidemics and Pandemics: A Systematic Review of Studies Using Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed-Methods Designs

  2022. Anna Nyberg, Kristiina Rajaleid, Ingrid Demmelmaier. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19 (11)

  Article

  We aimed to provide an overview of how work environment and occupational health are affected, and describe interventions designed to improve the work environment during epidemics and pandemics. The guidelines on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) were followed. The databases Cinahl, Medline, PsycInfo, and Web of Science were searched for population: working population; exposure: coronavirus epidemic or pandemic; and outcome: work environment, in articles published until October 2020. Quality assessment was based on a modified version of the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT). After deduplication 3711 articles remained, of which 530 were selected for full-text screening and 119 for quality assessment. After the exclusion of studies that were low quality, 95 remained, of which 85 focused on healthcare personnel and 10 on employees in other industries; 73 used quantitative methods and 22 used qualitative or mixed methods; the majority were based on cross-sectional data. Healthcare staff experienced increased job demands, poor leadership, and lack of resources (personal protective equipment, personnel, and competence). High demands and work with infected patients were associated with negative mental health outcomes. There was a lack of studies assessing interventions, studies from industries other than healthcare, and studies of high quality.

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• Psychosocial school conditions and students’ positive mental well-being

  2021. Sara Brolin Låftman (et al.). European Journal of Public Health

  Conference

  Background. School is a key social determinant of adolescent health. However, earlier research on psychosocial school conditions has largely focused on their relationship with aspects of adverse health, and fewer studies have examined the links with positive health. The aim of this study was to investigate boys' and girls' experiences of school demands, teacher support, and classmate support and their associations with positive mental well-being.

  Methods. Data were derived from the Swedish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study of 2017/18, with information collected among 1,418 students in grade 9 (∼15-16 years). School demands, teacher support, and classmate support were captured by indices based on multiple items. Positive mental well-being was measured by the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (SWEMBWS). Gender-stratified linear regression analyses were performed, clustering for school class.

  Results. Higher demands were associated with lower mental well-being (boys: b=-0.36, p < 0.05; girls: b=-0.65, p < 0.05). Conversely, mental well-being increased with greater teacher support (boys: b = 0.53, p < 0.05; girls: b = 0.56, p < 0.05) and classmate support (boys: b = 0.70, p < 0.05; girls: b = 0.50, p < 0.05). Interactions between demands and the support variables showed that at the lowest levels of teacher and of classmate support, mental well-being was low and not associated with school demands. With increasing levels of teacher and classmate support, the overall level of mental-well-being increased and revealed an inverse association between school demands and mental well-being.

  Conclusions. The findings indicate that psychosocial school conditions are important not only for adverse health among adolescents, but also for their positive health. The study contributes with knowledge about how psychosocial conditions in school may hinder or enhance positive health among students.

  Key messages. School demands, teacher and classmate support were associated with mental well-being among both boys and girls, although the association with demands was seen only at higher levels of support.

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• Workplace violence and health in human service industries: a systematic review of prospective and longitudinal studies

  2021. Anna Nyberg (et al.). Occupational and Environmental Medicine 78 (2), 69-81

  Article

  Objectives To provide systematically evaluated evidence of prospective associations between exposure to physical, psychological and gender-based violence and health among healthcare, social care and education workers.

  Methods The guidelines on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses were followed. Medline, Cinahl, Web of Science and PsycInfo were searched for population: human service workers; exposure: workplace violence; and study type:prospective or longitudinal in articles published 1990–August 2019. Quality assessment was performed based on a modified version of the Cochrane’s ‘Tool to Assess Risk of Bias in Cohort Studies’.

  Results After deduplication, 3566 studies remained, of which 132 articles were selected for full-text screening and 28 were included in the systematic review. A majority of the studies focused on healthcare personnel, were from the Nordic countries and were assessed to have medium quality. Nine of 11 associations between physical violence and poor mental health were statistically significant, and 3 of 4 associations between physical violence and sickness absence. Ten of 13 associations between psychological violence and poor mental health were statistically significant and 6 of 6 associations between psychological violence and sickness absence. The only study on gender-based violence and health reported a statistically non-significant association.

  Conclusion There is consistent evidence mainly in medium quality studies of prospective associations between psychological violence and poor mental health and sickness absence, and between physical violence and poor mental health in human service workers. More research using objective outcomes, improved exposure assessment and that focus on gender-based violence is needed.

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• School-Contextual Paths to Student Bullying Behaviour: Teachers Under Time Pressure are Less Likely to Intervene and the Students Know It!

  2020. Kristiina Rajaleid, Sara Brolin Låftman, Bitte Modin. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 64 (5), 629-644

  Article

  We assessed whether the level of time-pressure reported by a school's teachers is predictive of student bullying perpetration. We combined data from two surveys conducted in 129 schools in 2016: the Stockholm School Survey performed among students in grades 9 and 11 (n = 10,668), and the Stockholm Teacher Survey carried out among senior level (grades 7-9) and upper secondary school (grades 10-12) teachers (n = 2259). Multilevel path analyses showed that teachers' stress and time-pressure increased with declining school leadership functioning. Teachers' level of time-pressure was, in turn, positively associated with student traditional and cyberbullying behaviour, through its effect on the school staff's tendency (not) to intervene against bullying, but not through the teachers' stress level. We conclude that schools with leadership that provides opportunities for the teachers to focus on their main mission can counteract bullying among the students and therefore indirectly also to promote student health.

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• Birth size is not associated with depressive symptoms from adolescence to middle-age

  2019. Kristiina Rajaleid (et al.). Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease 10 (3), 376-383

  Article

  Low birth weight has been shown to be related to increased risk of depression later in life - but the evidence is not conclusive. We examined the association of size at birth with repeatedly measured depressive symptoms in 947 individuals from the Northern Swedish Cohort, a community-based age-homogeneous cohort born in 1965, and followed with questionnaires between ages 16 and 43 (participation rate above 90% in all the surveys). Information on birth size was retrieved from archived birth records. Length of gestation was known for a subsample of 512 individuals (54%). We studied the association of birth weight and ponderal index with self-reported depressive symptoms at ages 16, 21, 30 and 43; with the life-course average of depressive symptoms score and with longitudinal trajectories of depressive symptoms retrieved by latent class growth analysis. Socioeconomic background, mental illness or alcohol problems of a parent, exposure to social adversities in adolescence and prematurity were accounted for in the analyses. We did not find any relationship between weight or ponderal index at birth and our measure of depressive symptoms between ages 16 and 43 in a series of different analyses. Adjustment for length of gestation did not alter the results. We conclude that size at birth is not associated with later-life depressive symptoms score in this cohort born in the mid-1960s in Sweden. The time and context need to be taken into consideration in future studies.

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• Does social and professional establishment at age 30 mediate the association between school connectedness and family climate at age 16 and mental health symptoms at age 43?

  2019. Anna Nyberg (et al.). Journal of Affective Disorders 246, 52-61

  Article

  Background

  The aim was to use a theoretical framework developed by Bronfenbrenner in order to investigate if the association between school connectedness and family climate at age 16 and mental health symptoms at age 43 is mediated by social and professional establishment at age 30.

  Methods

  Data were drawn from The Northern Swedish Cohort, a prospective population-based cohort. The present study included 506 women and 577 men who responded to questionnaires at age 16 (in year 1981), age 30 (in 1995) and age 43 (in 2008). Mediation was tested by fitting structural equation models (SEM) and estimating direct effects between proximal processes (school connectedness and family climate) and symptoms of depression and anxiety respectively, and indirect effects via social and professional establishment (professional activity, educational level, and civil status).

  Results

  The standardised estimate for the direct path from school connectedness to depression was -0.147 (p = .000) and the indirect effect mediated by professional activity -0.017 (p = .011) and by civil status -0.020 (p = .002). The standardised direct effect between school connectedness and anxiety was -0.147 (p = .000) and the indirect effect mediated by civil status -0.018 (p = .005). Family climate was not significantly associated with the outcomes or mediators.

  Limitations

  Self-reported data; mental health measures not diagnostic; closed cohort; intelligence, personality and home situation before age 16 not accounted for.

  Conclusions

  Professional and social establishment in early adulthood appear to partially mediate the association between adolescent school connectedness and mental health symptoms in middle-age.

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• Stress resilience in young men mediates the effect of childhood trauma on their offspring's birth weight

  2019. Kristiina Rajaleid, Denny Vågerö. SSM - Population Health 8

  Article

  Experiencing the death of a parent during childhood is a severe trauma that seems to affect the next generation's birth weight. We studied the consequences of parental loss during childhood for men's psychological and physiological characteristics at age 18, and whether these were important for their first-born offspring's birth outcomes. We used a structured life-course approach and four-way decomposition analysis to analyse data for 250,427 three-generation families retrieved from nationwide Swedish registers and found that psychological resilience was impaired and body mass index was higher in men who had experienced parental death. Both characteristics were linked to offspring birth weight. This was lower by 18.0 g (95% confidence interval: 5.7, 30.3) for men who lost a parent at ages 8-17 compared to other ages. Resilience mediated 40% of this influence. Mediation by body mass index, systolic and diastolic blood pressure was negligible, as was the effect of parental loss on length of gestation. There was no mediation by the education of the men's future spouse. Previous literature has indicated that the period before puberty, the "slow growth period", is sensitive. Our evidence suggests that this may be too narrow a restriction: boys aged 8-17 appear to be particularly likely to respond to parental loss in a way which affects their future offspring's birth weight. We conclude that the observed transgenerational influence on birth weight is mediated by the father's psychological resilience but not by his body mass index or blood pressure.

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Show all publications by Kristiina Rajaleid at Stockholm University