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

英国青少年心理健康问题的患病率为14%[1]。在成年人中，白人和黑人经历的精神健康问题的类型存在明显且无法解释的差异；例如，黑人的精神病发生率更高[2]。然而，在年轻人中，研究表明黑人和白人青少年在心理健康问题上相似，尽管平均而言，黑人青少年中风险因素的患病率更高[3]。了解青春期和成年期精神健康问题发展的种族差异是REACH(韧性、种族和青少年心理健康)的关键焦点，我在过去的两年里一直在这个研究小组工作。从很小的时候就对人进行负面污蔑会产生负面影响，我们知道这是事实，即使标签是没有根据的。例如，从教育心理学来看，“教师和父母对被标记的青少年的残疾的感知和对他们的教育期望比对没有被标记为残疾的同样成就和行为的青少年更可靠”[4]。我的建议是提出一种新的视角，探讨将年轻人贴上社会潜在威胁标签的过程如何影响他们的心理健康，以及这些影响是否因族裔群体和移民而有所不同。标签理论背后的理论框架涉及到一个人收到一个他们不是自己选择的标签，并假设尽管结果可能源于其他原因，但一旦一个人被定义为离经叛道、有问题或危险的人，他们就面临着新的问题，这些问题源于自我和他人对附加在该标签上的负面污名的反应“[5，6，7]。在成年人中，有太多关于标签引发的致病过程的研究[5]，另外还有与精神健康问题相关的研究[8]。但是，无论是在当地还是在全球范围内，很少有人研究早年被贴上威胁社会的标签对心理健康的影响。

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.