Neighborhood Collective Efficacy and children’s Mental Health Problems in South Korea: a Multilevel Analysis

This study examined the relationship between neighborhood collective efficacy and children’s mental health problems in South Korea. With data from the Korean National Survey of the Present Status of Children and from the Korean Statistical Information Service and Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare, multilevel regression models were developed to assess the association between neighborhood collective efficacy and mental health problems of 1964 children aged 9 to 17 years. The analyses controlled for a host of individual-level variables and for neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage. The primary finding was that neighborhood collective efficacy had protective associations with children’s self-reported mental health problems after controlling for confounders. This outcome suggests that policies aimed at improving the mental health of South Korean children should include community-level interventions to build and strengthen neighborhood collective efficacy.