Social inequalities in mental health: Understanding variations across countries and finding policy solutions to improve population health

Health behaviours such as physical activity and food choices have a large influence on health outcomes through the life course such as diseases and life expectancy. In this regard, adolescence is an important transition time, during which patterns of health behaviours are established. One of the most important health behaviours - particularly during adolescence - is physical activity.

Adolescents should engage in 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) every day. However, according to the World Health Organization's (WHO) survey on Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC).
Only 11% of 15-year old girls and 21% of 15-year old boys in the WHO European region fulfil these guidelines. This data also shows that gender is a strong determinant of physical activity in adolescence. Girls are less physically active than boys are - a difference that is consistent across European countries and that persists into adult life. However, research lacks a clear understanding of the causes and consequences of this gender gap in physical activity.

In particular, three main research gaps have been identified and will be studied by this DPhil research:

(1) Investigating which social and economic level factors affect the gender gap in physical activity in different country contexts,
(2) Exploring the determinants of cycling to school as concrete behavioural manifestation of the gender gap,
(3) Establishing how the gender gap in physical activity is associated with mental health outcomes.

All three themes will to be addressed in separate research studies. The first study will draw on international datasets of adolescents' health behaviour and use multilevel regression modelling to investigate the development of the gender gap over time and explore country-level differences across Europe. The second study will draw on survey data from the United Kingdom to investigate the environmental and socio-psychological factors, which influence that adolescent girls are less likely to cycle to school than boys are. The third study will investigate the link between girls being less physically active and their higher susceptibility to mental health conditions using the WHO dataset on Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC).

As physical activity has a protective function for obesity and mental health conditions, which are on the rise all around Europe, the suggested research has important implications for research and policy makers alike. The results of the research shall therefore inform practitioners who wish to increase young people's physical activity, for example through school health policies and interventions that encourage cycling to school.