Study Finds Adolescent ADHD, ODD Symptoms Do Not Directly Lower Adult Income

Overview

• An analysis of nearly 9,500 people in the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 linked adolescent symptom reports to adult registers for education, income, and psychiatric diagnoses.
• Parents assessed attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder symptoms when participants were 16, enabling mediation modeling of later outcomes.
• For individuals with both ADHD and ODD symptoms, average incomes were estimated to be about 25% lower via the education pathway and 18% lower via other psychiatric disorders.
• Oppositional defiant disorder commonly co-occurs with ADHD, with roughly 30% comorbidity, allowing the study to examine independent and combined effects.
• The authors say the findings support preventive investments in education and mental health services to reduce longer-term socioeconomic consequences.