A Rapid Data Sprint to Identify Children and Young People?s Mental Health Inequalities Using Qualitative Longitudinal Data from Age of Wonder

This project will bring together researchers from the University of Bradford and Age of Wonder (AoW) programme to make better use of existing interview data collected with children and young people over time. This data offers us a unique opportunity to understand how mental health develops in a real-world context, including how experiences differ depending on young people’s backgrounds, environments, and life circumstances. To date, this data has not yet been fully explored. This project will be supported by AoW research staff, we will work to better understand and organise the data so it can be used more effectively.

We will run four workshops involving researchers, children and young people, and wider community members to co-develop research questions that focus on mental health and inequalities. We will then analyse selected parts of the data using a rapid qualitative approach, focusing on one to two timepoints, to identify key themes related to young people’s mental health, social environments, and family experiences.

The findings will help us identify important gaps and priorities for future research, particularly in relation to inequalities in mental health among children and young people. Outputs will include reports, academic papers, and applications for further funding to support larger-scale research. This initial project will also help build longer-term collaboration and make better use of qualitative data to inform population mental health research.