The Overlooked Role of Fathers’ Mental Health: Evidence from Feature Selection Using National Data

Introduction

While the relationship between parental health and children’s well-being has received increasing attention, the role of fathers’ mental health in shaping young children’s mental health remains underexplored. This study examines the association between fathers’ perceived mental health status and the perceived mental health of children using nationally representative survey data.

Methods

Data were drawn from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), a large-scale national survey of U.S. families and individuals. The sample included 7,685 children aged 2–7 years and their fathers. The outcome variable, children’s perceived mental health status, was recoded into a binary variable representing optimal versus suboptimal mental health. Covariates included children’s demographic characteristics, health conditions, and family socioeconomic factors, as well as fathers’ health status, education level, employment status, and other family characteristics.

Feature selection was conducted using the Boruta algorithm with 10-fold cross-validation to identify the most relevant predictors of children’s mental health. Based on the feature selection results, weighted binary logistic regression models were conducted to examine the relationships between selected variables and children’s mental health outcomes.

Results

Results indicated that fathers’ perceived mental health, fathers’ health status, family income, children’s health status, presence of medical conditions, and child age were among the most important predictors. Children whose fathers reported suboptimal mental health were significantly more likely to experience suboptimal mental health themselves.

Conclusions

These findings highlight the importance of considering paternal well-being within family-centered approaches to children’s mental health. The presentation also invites dialogue and potential cross-national collaborations to examine similar relationships across different cultural and policy contexts.