How does racism affect the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people in the UK?

The 2020s are shifting widespread social awareness about racial issues. The broadcast of the global Black Lives Matter protests during the COVID-19 lockdowns brought to the fore underlying social tensions, sparking uncomfortable but necessary conversations. In the UK, a report was produced by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities on whether racism exists at all in our society, and if so, how it manifests.¹ Although there was some mention of the effects of racism on mental health, there was little focus on children and young people (aged 0–25 years). With the rise in consumption of news stories via the Internet (appendix p 2), the question of the effect of racism on children and young people's mental health, whether direct experience of racial trauma or vicarious exposure online, ought not be neglected. Therefore, as advisors to the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Emerging Minds Network, we set out to better understand young people's experiences of racism in the UK and its effects on their mental health to identify priorities for future mental health research.

We engaged with seven young people (aged 16–25 years), six of whom were men and one woman, of Black and Asian heritage, to solicit their views.² Although there were pre-prepared prompts (appendix p 2), the discussion was largely kept free flowing to capture the young people's experience authentically, allowing them to build on each other's points. The following is a summary of a few of the collective sentiments of the participants.²

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The young people voiced that the lack of urgency around racism in the UK is owing to the subtle form it takes compared with other countries such as the USA. They believed their peers were affected by stereotypes, institutional racism, and a lack of meaningful representation beyond lip service and tokenism. The young people described effects on their self-perception as a result, stirring up feelings of imposter syndrome or the need to work harder than their White counterparts to be accepted. They also reported the burden of having to perform to appear more palatable to, and protect themselves from, people who might negatively perceive them. Without adequate support, these experiences lead to feelings of loneliness and social isolation. Other effects of racism reported by the participants include its influence on decision making about careers and education due to anticipation of how people of their minority ethnic background might be treated. They also mentioned that these are circumstances that their parents prepared them for, highlighting potential longer term and indirect effects of racism.

In recognition of their experiences, the young people expressed a need for co-production of research and culturally appropriate interventions³ to give effect to meaningful representation. The current inadequacies in this area reflect the fact that young people with relevant lived experiences are under-represented among those doing the research due to difficulty securing funding in general. This problem is reinforced in the Broken Pipeline report, which reported that only 1·2% of the 19 868 PhD-funded studentships awarded by the UKRI research councils, combined over a 3–year academic period (2016–17, 2017–18, and 2018–19) in the UK, went to Black students or those from a Mixed ethnic background that included Black ethnicity.⁴ Although not all researchers from a minority ethnic background will carry out research on racism and mental health, lack of funding in general will further affect representation in research in this area.

These sentiments were affirmed by the professionals we engaged with who work with young people, including researchers, teachers, and youth workers whose insight we sought to help fill in the gaps in research priorities. We presented the findings of the young people's workshop, with which they expressed agreement, adding that some of the challenges of working within research around racism include the lack of prioritisation of this research by funders.

In summary, young people believe that an increase in exposure to racism can have detrimental effects on their overall mental health and wellbeing. Therefore, it is of great importance that these issues are prioritised in research, and that the research itself be done in consultation between researchers and youth from minority ethnic communities who are directly affected.

We declare no competing interests.