Diverse neighbourhoods linked to better mental health in White British youths

White British young people living in more ethnically diverse deprived neighbourhoods have better mental health than those living in "white working-class" neighbourhoods, according to a new UCL study. The study found there was no difference in the mental health of ethnic minority youths by whether they lived in neighbourhoods of differing levels of ethnic density and ethnic diversity. The paper, published today in Social Science and Medicine investigated the relationship between ethnic density (proportion of one's own ethnic group in a neighbourhood) and ethnic diversity (distribution of population across 18 ethnic groups in a neighbourhood) and adolescent mental health of over 4,000 young people aged between ten and 15 years of age in England who participated in the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), also known as Understanding Society. The researchers found that mental health in the White British ethnic majority group is worse when they live in deprived ethnically uniform neighbourhoods where their ethnic group is the vast majority and in neighbourhoods that are less ethnically diverse. Compared with White British Youths their minority counterparts live in neighbourhoods with more diversity and almost none live in neighbourhoods where their ethnic group is in the majority. Dr Stephen Jivraj (UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care), senior co-author said: " Our finding that the ethnic majority tend to have worse mental health when living in less ethnically diverse, deprived neighbourhoods is new.