Neighborhood deprivation affects children's mental health: Environmental risks identified in a genetic design

The possibility that neighborhood conditions affect children's development has captured much attention because of its implications for prevention. But does growing lip in deprived neighborhoods matter above and beyond a genet ic liability to behavior problems, if genetically vulnerable families tend to concentrate ii? poor neighborhoods? A nationwide study of 2-year-old twi ns shows that children in deprived neighborhoods were at increased risk for emotional and behavioral problems over and above ally genetic liability. E nvironmental factors shared by members of a family accounted for 20% of the population variation in children's behavior problems, and neighborhood dep rivation accounted for 5% of this family-wide environmental effect. The res ults suggest that the link between poor neighborhoods and children's mental health may be a tore environmental effect, and demonstrate that genetic de signs are environmentally informative and can be used to identify modifiabl e risk factors for promoting child health.