Mental health implications of being labelled a threat to society during adolescence among diverse groups

英国青少年中心理健康问题的患病率为14%。在成年人中，白人和黑人所经历的心理健康问题类型存在明显且无法解释的差异；例如，黑人的精神病发病率比黑人高。然而，在年轻人中，研究表明黑人和白人年轻人在心理健康问题上有相似之处，尽管平均而言，黑人青少年中风险因素的患病率更高。了解青少年和成年期心理健康问题发展的种族差异是REACH（弹性，种族和青少年心理健康）的一个重点，我在过去的两年里一直在这个研究小组工作。从小就给人负面的污名化会产生不利的影响，即使这个标签是毫无根据的，我们也知道这一点。例如，从教育心理学的角度来看，“教师和家长更有可能察觉到残疾，并对被贴上残疾标签的青少年抱有较低的教育期望，而不是对成绩和行为相似但没有被贴上残疾标签的青少年”。我的建议是提供一个新的视角，来研究将年轻人贴上社会潜在威胁标签的过程是如何影响他们的心理健康的，以及这些影响是否因种族和移民而异。标签理论背后的理论框架涉及到一个个体接受一个他们不是为自己选择的标签，并假设，尽管结果可能是由其他原因造成的，但一旦一个个体被定义为偏差、有问题或危险，“他们将面临源于自我和他人对该标签所附带的负面污名的反应的新问题”[5,6,7]。在成人中，有大量的研究是关于标记[5]引发的犯罪过程，以及单独标记与心理健康问题[8]相关的痕迹。但是，在当地和全球范围内，很少有关于在很小的时候就被贴上对社会构成威胁的标签对心理健康的影响的研究。

he prevalence of mental health problems among adolescents in Englandis 14% [1]. In adults, there are clear and unexplained differences in thetypes of mental health problems experienced by white and black people;for instance, rates of psychosis are higher among black people [2]. Amongyoung people, though, research suggests similarities in mental healthproblems between black and white youths, despite, on average, higherprevalence of risk factors among black adolescents [3]. Understandingethnic differences in the development of mental health problems duringadolescence and into adulthood is a key focus of REACH (Resilience,Ethnicity and AdolesCent Mental Health), the research group I've beenworking in for the last 2 years.Negatively stigmatising people from an early age has adverse impactsand we know this to be the case even if the label is unfounded. As anexample, from educational psychology, "teachers and parents are morelikely to perceive disabilities in and hold lower educational expectations forlabelled adolescents than for similarly achieving and behaving adolescentsnot labelled with disabilities" [4]. My proposal is to produce is a novelperspective on how the process of labelling young people as a potentialthreat to society affects their mental health, and whether these effectsdiffer by ethnic groups and among migrants. The theoretical frameworkbehind labelling theory involves an individual receiving a label that they didnot choose for themselves and assumes that, although an outcome canstem from other causes, once an individual has been defined as deviant,problematic or dangerous "they face new problems that stem from thereactions of self and others to negative stigma that are attached to thatlabel" [5, 6, 7]. There is a plethora of research in adults on thecriminogenic processes triggered by labelling [5] and, separately, thestigma associated with mental health problems [8]. But there is very littleresearch, locally and globally, on the mental health implications of beinglabelled a threat to society at an early age.