Elements of Urban Youth Stress

Stress continues to have a significant effect on people all over the world, and has become one of the most important health issues of the 20th century (Lu, 1999) . Stress is undoubtedly a major concern for youth considering that two-thirds of American teens report feeling stressed at least once a week (Hancock, 2009). Although previous research on stress and urban youth in the United States is minimal, there is even less research available on stress amongst urban youth in Africa. The purpose of the study is to examine elements of stress in American and Nigerian urban youth, to determine which types of stress and ways of coping differ across the populations, and to identify some of the possible reasons for these differences, if they exist.