The wellbeing of young people has become an important education policy issue, with suggestions that mental health problems amongst young people have increased in recent years. Experiences at school are thought to be a key factor contributing to mental ill-health amongst adolescents. Yet surprisingly, little is known about how mental health outcomes vary across school year groups, independent of the effects of age. This article contributes new evidence on this issue, drawing upon large-scale health data from England. We find substantial growth in mental health problems as young people progress through secondary school. Yet this seems to be driven by the effects of age, rather than due to movement into more senior school year groups. We consequently conclude that evidence of a direct link between school year group and young people’s mental health remains relatively weak.

中文翻译：

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英格兰青少年的心理健康：他们在校期间有何不同？

年轻人的福祉已成为一个重要的教育政策问题，有迹象表明，近年来年轻人的心理健康问题有所增加。学校的经历被认为是导致青少年精神疾病的关键因素。然而令人惊讶的是，人们对不同学年组的心理健康结果如何变化知之甚少，与年龄的影响无关。本文利用来自英格兰的大规模健康数据，为这个问题提供了新的证据。随着年轻人升读中学，我们发现心理健康问题显着增加。然而，这似乎是由年龄的影响驱动的，而不是由于进入更高年级的学年组。