Mental health and educational achievement in UK adolescents

义务教育结束时的教育成就与世界范围内的就业、健康和社会功能等成人生活的重要方面有着密切的联系。在英国，教育部最近的一项评估得出结论，如果不能在数学和英语考试中取得“及格”(A*-C级，或现在的9-5级)，青少年将不会被考虑接受高等教育，就业前景也很糟糕。这具有重要的意义，因为2013年，超过四分之一的英国青少年离开学校时没有取得这些成绩。因此，进行旨在理解和减少中学教育失败的研究是很重要的。尽管心理健康的作用日益得到承认，但影响教育成绩的机制在很大程度上仍然不清楚。这个项目将使用英国现有的优秀数据资源之一来实施新的分析方法，以阐明抑郁情绪与中学学业成绩之间的关系，到目前为止，教育研究中还没有以这种方式研究过这种关系。此外，我们还将研究中学期间情绪低落和教育失败对青春期后期和成年初期全日制教育和就业状况的影响。在这个项目中，我们将解决一系列关于青春期抑郁与学校成绩和成年早期教育/就业状况之间关系的相关研究问题。以前的研究结果表明，青春期抑郁与年级之间存在非线性关系，这意味着学习成绩可能不会随着抑郁症状的增加而成比例下降。此外，我们的目标是确定儿童、家庭、学校和地区的哪些特征可以用来确定情绪低落对教育/就业造成影响的高风险儿童。换句话说，我们正在寻找在英国中学进行心理健康筛查时应该考虑的风险和保护因素。此外，我们将探索抑郁情绪和教育失败都相互影响的假设。这个项目的另一个目标是确定我们的利益关系和处于高风险中的个人的关键时期，无论是短期影响还是长期影响。例如，我们将使用同一儿童在不同时期的数据来找出抑郁发生的阶段或年龄最有可能与负面后果有关，如中学结束时的教育失败。这将有助于了解何时应该在学校安排筛查，以及哪些儿童是最脆弱的儿童，应该优先进行干预。为了实现这项计划的目标，我们需要使用大型、高质量的数据库。幸运的是，英国拥有世界领先的数据资源，这将使我们能够适当地解决我们的研究问题。我们计划使用雅芳亲子纵向研究(ALSPAC)的数据。自90年代初以来，ALSPAC的这项研究已经特许了布里斯托尔地区14,500个家庭的健康状况。这是英国大样本纵向研究中的一个独特案例，因为它提供了每年的儿童数据。这一丰富的数据资源将使我们有可能研究抑郁症与不同阶段的教育成就之间的关系，并查看早年经历过负面结果(如教育失败和失业)的个人的先前记录。大多数小组成员以前都有分析ALSPAC数据的经验，这将促进数据访问和数据操作的过程。

Educational achievement at the end of compulsory education has strong links with important aspects of adult life such as employment, health, and social functioning worldwide. In the UK, a recent review from the Department of Education concluded that without achieving a 'pass' (A*-C grade, or 9-5 grade nowadays) in maths and English exams, adolescents will not be considered for higher education and face poor employment prospects. This has important implications, as in 2013 over one-quarter of UK adolescents left school without these grades. Therefore, it is important to conduct research intended to understand and to minimise educational failure in secondary school.The mechanisms that affect educational achievement remain unclear to a large extent nowadays, although the role of mental health is increasingly acknowledged. This project will implement novel analysis approaches using one of the excellent data resources available in the UK, in order to elucidate the relationship between depressed mood and school grades at secondary school, which has thus far not been examined in this manner within educational research. Moreover, we will look at the impact of depressed mood and educational failure during secondary school on full-time education and employment status in late adolescence and early adulthood. In this project, we will address a wide range of relevant research questions about the relationship between depression and school grades in adolescence and educational/employment statuses in early adulthood. Results from previous studies suggest a nonlinear relationship between depression and grades in adolescence, which means that academic performance might not decrease proportionally as depressive symptoms increase. Moreover, we aim to identify which characteristics of the child, family, school and area can be used to identify children at high risk of suffering educational/employment impacts from depressed mood. In other words, we are looking for risk and protective factors that should be considered when mental health screenings are conducted in secondary schools in the UK. Furthermore, we will explore the hypothesis that both depressed mood and educational failure have an impact on each other. Another goal of this project is to determine the critical periods, both in terms of short- and long-term effects, in our relationships of interest, and the individuals at high risk. For instance, we will use data from the same children at different periods to find out the stage or age at which occurrence of depression is most likely to be associated with negative consequences such as educational failure at the end of secondary school. This will shed some light on when screenings should be scheduled in schools and who are the most vulnerable children who should be prioritised for intervention.To fulfil the goals of this project, we will need to use large, high-quality databases. Fortunately, the UK has world-leading data resources that will allow us to address our research questions appropriately. We plan to use data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents And Children (ALSPAC). The ALSPAC study has chartered the health of 14,500 families in the Bristol area since the early 90s. This is a unique case amongst large sample UK longitudinal studies, as it provides child data year on year. The richness of this data resource will make it possible to examine the relationship between depression and educational achievement at different stages, and to look at previous records for individuals who experience negative outcomes in early adulthood, such as educational failure and unemployment. Most of the team members have previous experience analysing ALSPAC data, which will facilitate the process of data access and data manipulation.