Resilience, Ethnicity & AdolesCent Mental Health (REACH)
2 min read · Last updated 1 October 2026
The REACH study (Resilience, Ethnicity and AdolesCent mental Health) is a longitudinal cohort study based at King's College London, led by Professor Craig Morgan (Professor of Social Epidemiology, ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health). The study follows over 4,000 young people from diverse social and ethnic backgrounds across inner-city London schools, investigating how resilience and ethnicity interact with mental health outcomes across adolescence. It was originally funded by the European Research Council (£1.58 million, 2015–2021), with a COVID-19 follow-up phase subsequently funded by UKRI. The cohort profile is published in the International Journal of Epidemiology (2022). A 2025 preprint on the emergence and persistence of inequalities in adolescent mental health across the REACH cohorts is available on medRxiv.
Ethnic minority young people in the UK are less likely to seek mental health support, more likely to encounter stigma when they do, and are less well served by existing provision.
The Research
REACH uses longitudinal methods to track mental health outcomes across adolescence, with particular attention to how ethnicity shapes both the experience of mental health difficulties and the social and structural resources available to young people navigating them. By following the same cohort over time, the study can distinguish between factors that predict who develops difficulties and factors that predict recovery, a distinction that has implications for where intervention efforts should focus.
The COVID-19 follow-up phase examined pandemic-specific stressors (school closures, social isolation, bereavement, household economic disruption) and their differential impact on young people from different ethnic backgrounds. For a study already focused on resilience and ethnicity, the pandemic provided a uniquely stark test of whether the protective and risk factors identified in ordinary times held under conditions of acute collective stress.
My Involvement
I am involved in this project as a member of the Young People's Advisory Group (YPAG), convened through McPin Foundation.