Title: A multi-perspective analysis of university students' personal mental health and well-being capital and its effect on their life outcomes
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: Our research concerns the mental health, wellbeing, and life outcomes (education and employment) of young people, with a particular focus on those who enter higher education. Our main objectives for this research are to: 1. Reduce the evidence gap on how the mental health and wellbeing of adolescents affect their entrance into higher education and their life outcomes after higher education 2. Create the appropriate information for policymakers (such as government, universities and charities) to implement suitable policies and practices that can enhance mental health and wellbeing outcomes 3. Determine whether the findings or evidence vary depending on the social characteristics of the young people (i.e. the intersectionality of social characteristics, such as between a white male student vs a black male student). This research uses a secondary data analysis approach and makes use of a longitudinal dataset (the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England, LSYPE). The LSYPE has relatively recent data on students before, during and after university. Therefore, after consultation with What Works Wellbeing and the Student Mental Health and Research Network (SMaRteN) and the available data, our specific objectives of this research are to: 1. Determine whether young people who enter higher education differ in their mental health and wellbeing to those who do not enter higher education 2. Make recommendations for interventions that can enhance the university environment by determining which characteristics of the university environment improve the educational, employment and mental health outcomes for young people 3. Determine how the intersections of adolescents' social characteristics (e.g. gender, socioeconomic status) and their mental health and wellbeing affect their future life outcomes (mental health and wellbeing, education and employment) 4. Create linkages between university data (such as the National Student Survey and the institutional data held by the Higher Education Statistical Agency) and the cohort panel study, the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE).

Lay abstract: Earlier last year (April 2018), the UK Office for Students (OfS) noted that students from underrepresented groups such as black and minority ethnic (BME) students and those from disadvantaged backgrounds were less likely to succeed at university. Coupled with this, research has shown that students from these groups are also more likely to have poorer mental health and wellbeing. However, there is substantial social and political pressure on universities to act to improve student mental health. For example, the Telegraph ran the headline "Do British universities have a suicide problem?" Thus, in June 2018, the Hon. Sam Gyimah, the then UK universities minister, informed university vice-chancellors that student mental health and wellbeing has to be one of their top priorities. Universities are investing substantive sums in activities to tackle student mental health but doing so with no evidence base to guide strategic policy and practice. These activities may potentially be ineffective, financially wasteful, and possibly, counter-productive. Therefore, we need a better evidence base which this project intends to fulfil. Currently, there is a lack of evidence and understanding about which groups of young people going to universities may have poorer life outcomes (such as education, employment, and mental health and well-being) as a result of their mental health and wellbeing during their adolescent years. These life outcomes and their mental health and wellbeing, however, are important for understanding the context of the complex social identities of the young people, such as the intersections between their gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion and socio-economic status. Otherwise, these young people may feel misunderstood or judged. Most of the large body of quantitative research on life outcomes tend to focus on one social characteristic/identity of the student, such as the young person's gender or ethnicity or socio-economic status, but not the combination of all of these, i.e. the intersectionalities. Primarily, the reason for this has been the lack of sufficient data. This research draws on data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE), which tracked over 15,000 adolescents' education and health over 7 years between 2004-2010 (from when they were 13-19 years old), and the Next Steps Survey, which collected data from the same individuals in 2015 when they were 25 years and in the job market. This dataset also had an ethnic boost, which thus allows for the exploratory analysis of intersectionalities. Currently, there are a number of interventions being implemented to improve the university environment. However, there is a lack of evidence on how the university environment (such as their its size, amount of academic support available, availability of sports activities, students' sense of belonging, etc.) can affect the young person'students' mental health and wellbeing life outcomes. This evidence can be determined through by using the LSYPE data supplemented and by university environment data supplemented from the National Student Survey (NSS) and the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Thus this research uses an intersectional approach to investigate the extent to which the life outcomes of young persons who go to university are affected by their social inequality groupings and mental health and well-being during adolescence. Additionally, this research also aims to determine the characteristics of university environments that can improve the life outcomes of these young people depending on their social and mental health/wellbeing background.

Research activity codes: 2.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS;3.1 PRIMARY PREVENTION INTERVENTIONS TO MODIFY BEHAVIOURS OR PROMOTE WELL-BEING
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH