The relationship between multidimensional poverty, income poverty and youth depressive symptoms: cross-sectional evidence from Mexico, South Africa and Colombia

Whereas monetary poverty is associated with increased risk of depressive symptoms in young people, poverty is increasingly understood as a multidimensional problem. However, it is yet to be understood how the associations between different dimensions of poverty and youth mental health differ across countries. We examine the relationship between multidimensional, as well as income poverty, and depressive symptoms in young people (age 11–25 years) across three middle-income countries. Based on harmonised data from surveys in Colombia, Mexico and South Africa (N=16 173) we constructed a multidimensional poverty index that comprised five deprivations. We used Poisson regression to examine relationships between different forms of poverty with depressive symptoms across the countries. Multidimensional poverty was associated with higher rates of depressive symptoms in the harmonised dataset (IRR (incidence rate ratio)=1.25, 95% CI 1.10 to 1.42), in Mexico (IRR=1.34, 95% CI 1.11 to 1.64) and Colombia (IRR=2.01, 95% CI 1.30 to 3.10) but not in South Africa, a finding driven by a lack of associations between child labour and health insurance coverage with depressive symptoms. There was only an association with income poverty and depressive symptoms in South Africa, not in Colombia or Mexico. Depressive symptoms were associated with individual deprivations such as school lag, child labour and lack of access to health services in the harmonised dataset, but not with household deprivations, such as parental unemployment and housing conditions, though the opposite pattern was observed in South Africa. Our findings suggest that the importance of specific dimensions of poverty for mental health varies across countries, and a multidimensional approach is needed to gain insights into the relationship between youth depression and poverty.