Identify and discuss the various child and adolescent risk factors for the development of mental health problems and disorders. What is a risk factor? What are the three main categories of risk factors? Provide three examples of each category of risk factor.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers should define risk factors as experiences, traits, or issues that make
mental health problems and disorders more likely. There are three main categories of
risk factors: individual risk factors, family risk factors, and neighborhood risk factors.
Examples will vary across students, but should include any three of the following for
individual factors: gender, age, ethnicity, poorer overall physical health, lower cognitive
function, exposure to illness, increased physical stress over time, substance use and
abuse, poor nutrition, and lifetime history of environmental toxins, stress, infections, and
traumatic life events. Family factors include lower parental education, lower economic
and social class, poorer employment and work histories, a more extensive psychiatric
and medical history, parental history of mental disorders, and poor family functioning
and structure. Finally, examples of neighborhood factors should include increased
number of trauma or violent events, lower income neighborhoods, and poor
environmental health.