Exploring Pathways to Children and Young People’s Mental Health

We are an interdisciplinary community of researchers across the GW4 at different career stages with a shared passion for improving the mental health and well-being of children and young people (CYP). This group aims to take advantage of the opportunities provided by longitudinal cohort study datasets and data linkage in the UK and overseas to achieve this goal.  

The first research challenge we are tackling is achieving a better understanding of how to support the mental health of children and young people who experience an early or late onset of puberty compared to those for whom puberty is ‘on-time’ relative to their same-age, same-sex peers. An early onset of puberty is a risk factor for a wide variety of mental health outcomes in adolescence, including emotional and behavioural problems, disordered eating and substance abuse. Example research questions that need to be addressed include: 

• Is puberty a high-risk period for mental health problems for all CYP, or are those who experience off-time puberty at greater risk than their peers? 

• How does CYP’s experiences of puberty impact their mental health, and how can they be better supported during puberty? 

• Early puberty increases the risk for depression and its persistence into adulthood for girls, while late puberty may increase risk for depression in boys. Does early/late puberty increase risk for other difficulties, such as antisocial behaviour, substance use and eating disorders in both boys and girls? 

• Do the findings for off-time puberty and mental health problems apply to different minoritized ethnic groups in the UK and overseas? 

Our interdisciplinary research community is well placed to answer these questions and identify further gaps, given the expertise, resources and connections shared across our GW4 network. Together, we can innovate research on pubertal timing and mental health, thereby advancing theory and enabling a more targeted approach to the content and timing of prevention and intervention initiatives.

We will hold a networking event and dinner at Cardiff University on the 22nd July 2025, hosted by core member Dr Kelly Morgan. In September 2025, we will hold a 2-day grant writing retreat to prepare funding bids for research on puberty and child and adolescent mental health. Core members Dr Cassandra Lowe (Exeter) and Professor Carol Joinson (Bristol) will lead a journal special edition in Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology showcasing research on puberty and mental health in children and adolescents. Our research associate Jiaxin Deng (Bath), network lead Dr Jennifer Allen (Bath) and Dr Ahmed Elkaheem (Bristol) will prepare a data note on the calculation of peak height velocity (PHV), a measure of pubertal growth in the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) while adjusting for MCS weights for attrition and its complex sampling strategy, and share this new dataset including PHV in the MCS as an open access resource for all researchers. Dr Siobhan Mitchell and Dr Doretta Caramaschi (Exeter) will work with other ECRs in our network, our Young People’s Advisory Group (YPAG), school teachers and mental health practitioners to develop parent/teacher guides and practitioner webinar as free online educational resources on this topic. Our YPAG and other stakeholders will also have input into infographics and an animation developed by an illustrator that will be made available on our website: https://www.pathwaystochildmentalhealth.com/.