Prevalence and Social Inequality in Youth Loneliness in the UK.

Using data from the English arm of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study, we examined the prevalence of loneliness for school-aged adolescents and how it is linked to social inequalities. The HBSC study collects data from 11-, 13-, and 15-year-olds, and is repeated every four years, allowing the exploration of prevalence rates of loneliness pre COVID-19 pandemic for comparison. We also explored whether loneliness was associated with socio-economic status (SES) and linked to academic attainment and health complaints. The total sample was 14,077 from 156 schools in England. Findings revealed a stable prevalence rate of 8.2% for loneliness from 2006 to 2014. We also found, across all survey years, (1) those aged 15 years were significantly lonelier than younger peers, (2) those who reported lower SES were lonelier than their more well-off peers, and (3) higher loneliness was associated with being '"below average" academically and reporting more health complaints. Conclusions: These prevalence data enable researchers, policymakers, and others to make comparisons with prevalence rates during the COVID-19 pandemic to explore whether there have been increases in loneliness among school-aged adolescents. Loneliness was consistently related to social inequalities, suggesting that targeted interventions that include whole systems changes are needed.

Bullying victimization: time trends and the overlap between traditional and cyberbullying across countries in Europe and North America.

OBJECTIVES: This study explores recent cross-national trends over time (2002-2014) in the occurrence of victimization by bullying; then it documents the overlap between cybervictimization and traditional bullying in 2014 among adolescents in 37 countries. METHODS: Data from four cycles (2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014) of the cross-national Health Behavior in School-Aged Children study were included (N = 764,518). Trends in traditional victimization were evaluated using logistic regression models in 37 countries. Prevalence of cybervictimization and the overlap between cybervictimization and traditional victimization were estimated. RESULTS: Linear decreases in bullying victimization were observed in 21 countries among boys, and in 12 countries among girls. The prevalence of cybervictimization was systematically lower than traditional victimization. Overall across all countries, 45.8% of those who reported cybervictimization also reported traditional victimization (46.5% for boys and 45.3% for girls), but wide country variations were observed. CONCLUSIONS: These indicate the need for a more holistic perspective to intervention and prevention that considers all expressions of bullying, traditional or online. Public health programs and policies could focus on addressing bullying more broadly, rather than focusing on behaviors that happen in a particular context.

Association Between Experiencing Relational Bullying and Adolescent Health-Related Quality of Life.

BACKGROUND: Bullying is a public health concern for the school-aged population, however, the health outcomes associated with the subtype of relational bullying are less understood. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between relational bullying and health-related quality of life (HRQL) among young people. METHODS: This study utilized data from 5335 students aged 11-15 years, collected as part of the 2014 Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) study conducted in England. Data were collected through self-completed surveys. Multilevel analysis modeled the relationship between relational bullying and HRQL. Demographic variables (sex, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status) and other forms of bullying were controlled for. RESULTS: Experiencing relational bullying had a significant negative association with HRQL whilst controlling for other forms of bullying. Weekly relational bullying resulted in an estimated 5.352 (95% confidence interval (CI), -4.178, -6.526) decrease in KIDSCREEN-10 score compared with those not experiencing relational bullying. CONCLUSION: Experiencing relational bullying is associated with poorer HRQL. The findings question the perception of relational bullying as being a predominantly female problem. Girls were more likely to report experiencing relational bullying, but the negative association with HRQL was equal for boys and girls.

Self-harm in adolescence: protective health assets in the family, school and community.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this paper was to examine if the multiple environments of the adolescent including family, peers, school and neighbourhood might function as protective health assets against self-harming behaviour during adolescence. METHODS: The present study utilised data collected from 1608 respondents aged 15 years as part of the England WHO Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) Study. Multilevel modelling was undertaken using the package MLwiN (version 2.33) to investigate the potential domains and dimensions of family life, school culture and environment, and neighbourhood factors that may operate as protective health assets. RESULTS: The results indicated that while peer support did not appear to operate as a protective health asset in the context of self-harm, key dimensions of adolescent/parent interaction and adolescent experience of the school culture and their neighbourhood were associated with reduced likelihood of self-harming behaviours during adolescence. CONCLUSIONS: The Findings highlight the significance of belonging and connectedness as important constituent elements of protective health assets for young people. Interventions that address the multiple environments of the young person, may offer an effective means to reduce the levels of self-harm.

Cross-national time trends in bullying victimization in 33 countries among children aged 11, 13 and 15 from 2002 to 2010.

BACKGROUND: Bullying among children and adolescents is a public health concern; victimization is associated with psychological and physical health problems. The purpose of this study is to examine temporal trends in bullying victimization among school-aged children in Europe and North America. METHODS: Data were obtained from cross-sectional self-report surveys collected as part of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study from nationally representative samples of 11-, 13- and 15-year-olds, from 33 countries and regions which participated in the 2001-02, 2005-06 and 2009-10 surveys. Responses from 581 838 children were included in the analyses. Binary logistic regression was used for the data analyses. RESULTS: The binary logistic regression models showed significant decreasing trends in occasional and chronic victimization between 2001-02 and 2009-10 across both genders in a third of participating countries. One country reported significant increasing trends for both occasional and chronic victimization. Gender differences in trends were evident across many countries. CONCLUSION: Overall, while still common in many countries, bullying victimization is decreasing. The differences between countries highlight the need to further investigate measures undertaken in countries demonstrating a downward trend.