Collective Efficacy and Adolescent Mental Health Outcomes Among Single Mother Families

Background/purpose:  The proportion of families with single mothers continues to increase in the US.  Unfortunately these families have increased risks of adverse health outcomes when compared to families with married mothers.  Single mothers are more likely to experience economic hardships compared to married mothers which makes them more likely to reside in disadvantaged neighborhoods.  Collective efficacy is a social process that accounts for how positive social ties among residents leads to shared actions to promote and maintain the safety and wellbeing of a neighborhood.  Because collective efficacy relates to better adolescent outcomes (e.g., less teen pregnancy and juvenile delinquency), it may function as a protective factor for health outcomes among adolescent children of single mothers.  

Methods:  We used data from the most recent wave of the longitudinal Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing (FFCW) study to examine relationships between adolescents and their mother’s perceptions of collective efficacy and adolescents’ self-reported symptoms of depression and anxiety.  We used an analytic sample of 1,875 single mothers and their adolescent children who participated in the 6^th wave of the FFCW study.  We employed structural equation modeling to test a model of maternal perceptions of collective efficacy predicting adolescent depression and anxiety symptoms and an alternative model using adolescent perceptions of collective efficacy predicting depression and anxiety symptoms.  For each model, collective efficacy was assessed by two separate but related factors of social cohesion and informal social control, each consisting of 5 items.  Adolescent anxiety was assessed using six items derived from the Brief Symptom Inventory 18, and adolescent depression symptoms were assessed by five items derived from the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale.  All measures were rated on a 4-point Likert scale.  We controlled for poverty and maternal mental health for both models.

Results:  Mothers averaged 40.03 years (SD= 6.03), and their children averaged 15.63 years (SD= 0.99), 72.6% (N=1354) of these families in this sample lived between 0-199% of the federal poverty level.  Both maternal perceptions and adolescent perceptions of collective efficacy structural models yielded acceptable fit (χ² (221) = 1161.59, p<.01, RMSEA [90% CI]= 0.048 (0.045- 0.050), CFI = 0.969, TLI= 0.965; χ²(199) = 809.54, p<.01, RMSEA [90% CI]= 0.041 (0.038- 0.044), CFI = 0.972, TLI= 0.968 respectively).  The maternal model revealed that only social cohesion had a statistically significant association with decreased adolescent symptoms of anxiety.  The alternative adolescent model revealed adolescent perceptions of social cohesion and informal social control were predictive of lower/less anxiety and depression symptoms.  Conversely, informal social control was predictive of increased adolescent anxiety.

Discussion:  The current study contributes to the scientific inquiry of collective efficacy among single mothers and their adolescent children.  We examined both maternal and adolescent perceptions of collective efficacy relationships with adolescent depression and anxiety symptoms and found adolescent perceptions of social cohesion associated with lower levels of anxiety and depression symptoms whereas only maternal perceptions of social cohesion were related to less depression.  Interestingly, increased adolescent perceptions of informal social control were linked with greater levels of anxiety.