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Studies that link urbanicity to mental health are mixed depending on outcome and context. More research is needed to examine whether the urban upbringing effect holds true across racial populations in a large and diverse country like the United States.

We analyzed two large datasets that were administered contemporaneously with similar methods: The National Comorbidity Survey-Replication (NCS-R, Whites) and the National Survey of American Life (NSAL, Blacks). We ran multivariable logistic regression models to examine the associations between area of upbringing (urban/large city, other, rural) and six psychiatric disorders, controlling for sex, age, years of education and income-to-poverty ratio (and ethnicity in the NSAL). We performed these analyses in both the NCS-R and the NSAL separately.

The majority (58.97%) of the White sample grew up in the ‘other’ category (i.e …