| Summary: | The majority of Swedish boys and girls have good psychosomatic health. Despite that the risk of mental health problems such as nervousness, feeling low and sleeping difficulties has increased steadily in recent decades. Moreover, previous surveys on health and well-being indicate that boys and girls of foreign extraction in Sweden are at increased risk of ill health compared to boys and girls of Swedish background. The main aim of this thesis was to analyse health and social determinants among boys and girls of foreign extraction in Sweden. The factors explored in papers I–IV include parental background, family affluence and gender and their associations with subjective health complaints, psychosomatic problems or health risk behaviours. Other included risk factors for ill health were involvement in bullying, low participation and discrimination at school. This thesis takes an intersectional perspective, with ambitions to be able to emphasize the interplay between different power relations (i.e. gender, social class and parental background). Two sets of cross-sectional data were used. Three papers were based on the Swedish part of the World Health Organization’s Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children. The sample consisted of 11,972 children (boys n = 6054; girls n = 5918) in grades five, seven and nine from the measurement years 1997/98, 2001/02 and 2005/06. The response rate varied between 85 and 90%. About one fifth of the included children were of foreign extraction. For the fourth paper regional data from Northern Sweden were used. Boys (n = 729) and girls (n = 798) in grades six to nine answered a questionnaire in 2011 and the response rate was 80%. About 14% of the included children were of foreign extraction. Statistical methods used were chi-square test, correlation analyses, logistic regression analyses, cluster analyses and test of mediating factor. The results showed that girls of foreign background were at increased risk of subjective health complaints (SHC) and boys of mixed background were at ...
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