Relations of psychological distress with objective individual, family, and neighborhood characteristics of urban adolescents

This paper describes the relations of psychological distress with 11 ecological factors (5 community, 4 family, and 2 individual) among 423 older urban adolescents who are predominantly people of color. Data were obtained by means of self-report via group-administered questionnaires given between 1994 and 1996; most scales are multi-item. There is wide variation in distress. There are very few statistically significant relationships between the ecological factors and distress, and those are negligible. Girls whose parents have less education and live in extended families have higher distress; family and individual domains are correlated .04 and .03 with distress and the community domain .00, so this ecological model accounts for a mere 7%, of the common total variance in distress.