Determining The Difference Between History Of Depression On Family Health History Form And SCID Using Socioeconomic Standard Measures

"This project was completed as a part of earning my Micro-credential in Psychology in Data-Informed Decisions. With this project, I wanted to learn how to analyze data using RStudio to contribute research to Dr. Pilyoung Kim’s study on prenatal pathways for poverty’s influence on the brains of two generations that explores the relationships of parent-infant social, emotional, and brain development. Using data from this study, I formulated the research question: What is the difference between the self-reported history of depression on the family health history (FHH) form and history of depression assessed via the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM (SCID) and can the discrepancies be predicted by socioeconomic standard measures?

I found discrepancies in the FHH form and SCID and used the income to needs ratio (INR) data to determine if the existence of a discrepancy was due to this variable. I also determined whether the type of discrepancy (on the SCID and not on FHH form or on the FHH form and not the SCID) was correlated with INR data. I used INR because the differences in reports could be related to disparities in health care access and mental health education, which can likely be shown through INR data. I ran t-tests to determine if there was a correlation between the variables and created violin plots to display the data. The p-values were 0.2334 and 0.8516, respectively, so there does not appear to be a correlation between discrepancy in the two forms and INR. Based on the fact that I did not find any correlation between discrepancy and INR, it is clear that this problem is much more complex than income. I would like to look at other variables that may have an influence on SES such as education level, race/ethnicity, and living conditions."