RESEARCH ARTICLE Socioeconomic Associations with ADHD: Findings from a Mediation Analysis

Background Children from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds are at greater risk of a range of negative outcomes throughout their life course than their peers; however the specific mech-anisms by which socioeconomic status relates to different health outcomes in childhood are as yet unclear. Aims The current study investigates the relationship between socioeconomic disadvantage in childhood and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and investigates putative me-diators of this association in a longitudinal population-based birth cohort in the UK. Methods Data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children was used (n = 8,132) to ex-plore the relationship between different measures of socioeconomic status at birth-3 years and their association with a diagnosis of ADHD at age 7. A multiple mediation model was utilised to examine factors occurring between these ages that may mediate the association. Results Financial difficulties, housing tenure, maternal age at birth of child and marital status were significantly associated with an outcome of ADHD, such that families either living in financial difficulty, living in council housing, with younger or single mothers ’ were more likely to have a child with a research diagnosis of ADHD at age 7. Financial difficulties was the strongest predictor of ADHD (OR 2.23 95 % CI 1.57-3.16). In the multiple mediation model, involve-ment in parenting at age 6 and presence of adversity at age 2-4 mediated 27.8 % of the association