Population mental health matters child health disparity: a national level analysis

BACKGROUND: The association between social distress and child health is important and attracts research interest. This study aims to examine the trend of inequality in the mortality rate for children under five (U5MR) over time and decompose the population mental health (PMH)-gradient in U5MR into different drivers at the national level. METHODS: Data from 1990 to 2019 on the U5MR, PMH, and potential risk factors, such as socioeconomic status, environmental exposures at the national level, health behavior, basic water and sanitation services, urbanization, healthcare level, and HIV prevalence, were collected from online databases. We described the trend of U5MR and broke down U5MR based on the countries’ risk factor status and PMH. We constructed regression models and decomposed the drivers of change in U5MR disparity based on PMH-gradient. RESULTS: The difference in U5MR between countries with different levels of air pollution and income status was narrowed since 1990 for the high PMH groups. Countries with a higher level of PMH had less significant differences in U5MR between low- and middle-income groups than those with a lower level of PMH. The development of PMH-related gradient in child health is not consistent thoroughly. Before 2000, boys experienced a sharper decline in PMH-related gradient in health than girls did. The decomposition shows that the changes in PMH-gradient in child health were mainly caused by changes in the return to risk factors. The mental health of female population matters more in child health outcomes. CONCLUSION: Although the U5MR converges across countries, the reason varies. The PMH gradient in child mortality is mainly explained by the change in the return to risk factors. The PMH-gradient health disparity in boys is larger than that in girls in 2019, which indicates that boys’ health may be more vulnerable to the development of PMH recently. The findings remind us that we need to pay attention to the hidden reasons for the growth of disparity. It also suggests that improving PMH has a great impact on reducing PMH-related health disparity, especially for boys. Our research contributes to the understanding of the transition of PMH-related health disparity in U5MR and provides policy implications for reducing gender disparity in child health. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-14530-w.