1. CYDL Project One Symposium
Least and Most Advantaged Albertan Youth
Leslie Twilley, PhD
October 1, 2012

2. Context – Literature Some youth are more advantaged than others
Low socio-economic status is an often-studied disadvantage, and has been found to be associated with poor outcomes in areas such as health, education, and behaviour.
Poor mental health is another type of disadvantage, associated with elevated rates of service use in domains such as health care, justice and corrections, special education programs, foster care, and income support.
Research also shows that some youth have many disadvantages and remain resilient, while some youth have many advantages but poor outcomes.
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3. Context – Definition of advantage
We wanted to study advantage/disadvantage for Albertan youth
Our task was to come up with a definition of advantage that was consistent with previous findings and could be operationalized with our data
We chose from among our key indicators, available for all youth in Project One
Least and most advantaged youth were defined in terms of educational achievement, mental health status, and socio-economic status
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4. Context – Population Description Criteria for advantage categories
Indicator
Least advantaged
Most advantaged
Registered in the Alberta Health Care Insurance Plan
Yes
Enrolled in Alberta Education
Age 12 to 17 years
Educational achievement
Below expectations
Above expectations
Mental health condition No
Socio-economic status
Lowest
Highest
211,638 youth met the first three criteria
1.1% of these (2,281 youth) were the least advantaged in Alberta
3.6% (7,517 youth) were the most advantaged
95.4% (201,840 youth) were neither least nor most advantaged (“remaining youth”)
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5. Gender
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6. Region of residence
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7. Number of physician visits
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8. Number of Emergency Room Visits
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9. Number of hospitalizations
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10. Number of hospitalizations
Number of hospitalizations
Advantage status
Least advantaged youth
Most advantaged youth
Remaining Albertan youth
Number of youth
No hospitalization
2,020
7,445
197,439
One hospitalization
187 62
3,746
Two or more hospitalizations 74 10
655
Total
2,281
7,517
201,840
Percent of youth
88.6
99.0
97.8
8.2
0.8
1.9
3.2
0.1
0.3
100.0
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11. Intervention Services
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12. Offence charges
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13. Corrections
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14. Percent of youth who were least advantaged
Intervention services
9.2%
Family Support for Children with Disabilities
16.3%
Offence charges
7.2%
Corrections (custody)
13.4%
Corrections (community)
7.3%
Population
1.1%
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15. Challenged Youth
In one set of analyses, we looked at vulnerable youth from a different point of view
We identified youth from our population (registered in ACHIP & Education, 12 to 17 years old) who faced one or more of the following challenges:
Subject of a maltreatment-related investigation or intervention
Received FSCD services
Had offence charges
Involved in corrections
6.5% of the population (13,859 youth) were “Challenged Youth” by this definition
We then looked at these youth in terms of key indicators, focusing on educational achievement
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16. Challenged youth
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17. Challenged youth
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18. Summary
Least advantaged youth were more likely than most advantaged youth to be male, to live in rural areas, to visit physicians often, to attend an emergency room or be hospitalized, or to receive maltreatment-related intervention services
Least advantaged youth were over-represented in intervention services, FSCD, receipt of offence charges, and involvement in corrections
Youth facing challenges were more likely to meet or exceed educational expectations if they were lived in a higher SES neighbourhood or did not have a mental health condition (also females and low users of health services).
These effects are likely due to complex interactions between factors such as past experiences, current experiences, access to services, and factors identified in our analyses. More data needed!
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19. Acknowledgements
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