Making the margins visible: quantifying intersectional inequalities in youth mental health across time and place

Summary

Young people’s mental health is shaped by multiple social identities and positions – such as gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and socioeconomic position – that interact in complex ways.

Most research treats these factors separately, leaving gaps in understanding the needs of the young population, particularly those who are multiply marginalised.

This project aims to address those gaps by using an intersectional framework to study inequalities that occur at specific combinations of multiple social identities and positions.

We will analyse existing data from multiple longitudinal population-based studies (including the Millennium Cohort Study, Next Steps, 1970 British Cohort Study, and 1958 National Child Development Study), using innovative quantitative methods aligned with intersectionality. We will examine how inequalities vary over time and across places, recognising that privilege and marginalisation are dependent on context.

This project will address critical questions in population mental health, including:

• Are there intersectional inequalities in youth mental health at the population level and to what extent are these due to differences in the way in which mental health and ill health are measured across intersectional groups?
• Are young people from specific intersectional positions experiencing a greater share of the mental health declines documented in recent generations?
• Which intersectional groups face persisting or worsening mental ill health across their life courses?
• How do inequalities differ across UK regions and what role do area-level factors play?
• How do patterns in intersectional inequalities compare across countries with different levels of similarity with the UK and what does this suggest about broader societal factors?

This project is lead by academic experts across multiple academic institutions including UCL, King’s College London, and University of Oregon. It is also shaped by the involvement of a Young People Advisory Group (YPAG) comprising young people from diverse intersectional positions with lived experience of mental ill health and/or social discrimination. Also advising are representatives from non-academic organisations committed to health and mental health equity.

Outputs

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Research project team

Evangelina Asiedu-Addo

Peer Researcher and Public Involvement Officer, McPin Foundation

Jayati Das-Munshi

Professor of Social and Psychiatric Epidemiology, King's College London

Clare R Evans

Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Oregon

Helen L Fisher

Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, Social Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King’s College London

Hanna Jones

Young People's Senior Peer Research Coordinator, McPin Foundation

Gabriel Lawson

Research Associate, Policy Institute, King’s College London

Darío Moreno-Agostino

Principal Research Fellow in Population Mental Health

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Praveetha Patalay

Professor of Population Health and Wellbeing

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Ann Phoenix

Professor of Psychosocial Studies, Thomas Coram Research Unit

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George Ploubidis

Professor of Population Health and Statistics, and Director of the National Child Development Study and 1970 British Cohort Study

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Thomas Steare

Research Fellow

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Cohort studies used

The researchers used data from the following cohort studies in this project.

1958 National Child Development Study

The 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) is following the lives of more than 17,000 people born in England, Scotland and Wales in a single week of 1958.

1970 British Cohort Study

The 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) is following the lives of around 17,000 people born in England, Scotland and Wales in a single week of 1970.

Next Steps

Next Steps follows the lives of around 16,000 people in England born in 1989-90.

Millennium Cohort Study

The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is following the lives of around 19,000 young people born across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2000-02.