The role of school context in the increase in young people's health complaints in Finland

Abstract

According to biological indicators trends in young people's health appear favourable, but the psychosocial aspects suggest a different pattern. We studied the differences across schools in common health complaints and in three groups of factors behind them: pupils’ individual characteristics, family related factors and school-related factors. Multilevel linear regression models were used to analyse repeated cross-sectional data from Finnish 8th and 9th graders (14- and 15-year-olds, n = 60 347 ) in 109 schools that were surveyed in 1996, 1998 and 2000. Common health complaints increased steadily during the follow-up for all schools and they varied across schools. Both individual and school-level factors contributed significantly to the variation in common health complaints. The study suggests that young people's psychosocial health involves a range of influences deriving from individual susceptibility and from the social and educational functioning of schools. However, none of these factors can account for the rapid decrease in young people's psychosocial health.