New Nuffield Foundation Research on Adolescent Mental Health

Evidence suggests that adolescent mental health problems have risen significantly in recent decades. If so, is this happening everywhere or is there something specific about the UK? What might be driving these trends? What are the policy implications? What needs to change to make things better?

The Nuffield Foundation has developed the Adolescent Mental Health Initiative as a three year programme of research to help answer questions like these.

Within this programme, a new collaborative project between Dr Seija Sandberg of University College London and Professor Robert MacDonald of Teesside’s Youth Research Group will focus particularly on adolescent stress.

The six month project started in January 2008. Dr Sandberg has an international reputation for her research in child and adolescent psychiatry. Professor MacDonald was asked to take part in the project to provide critical perspectives from sociology, youth studies and criminology.

The project will be particularly interested in if and how sociological differences, for example, by social class or by neighbourhood, translate into differences in individual psychological outcomes.

---