Adversity, Migration, and Adolescent Mental Health: Evidence-Based Interventions and Clinical Outcomes

Adolescence is a period of heightened neurobiological and psychosocial sensitivity, and the peak developmental window for the onset of common psychiatric disorders including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and self-injurious behaviour. For adolescents exposed to migration, displacement, and structural social disadvantage, this developmental vulnerability intersects with chronic adversity, discrimination, acculturative stress, and disrupted family, educational, and community systems. The resulting burden of psychiatric morbidity in immigrant, refugee, and socially marginalised youth is well documented, yet this population remains substantially under-served by mainstream clinical models.Achieving meaningful psychiatric outcomes in these populations requires approaches that go beyond standard diagnostic frameworks. Evidence-based psychosocial and psychological interventions, delivered in culturally and contextually informed ways, are central to effective clinical practice with adversity-exposed adolescents. At the same time, clinicians and services must address structural barriers - including limited access to specialist care, language and cultural mismatch, stigma, and fragmented service pathways - that reduce treatment uptake and effectiveness. Advancing clinically rigorous, equity-sensitive approaches to adolescent psychiatric care in these contexts is therefore a pressing priority for the field.This Research Topic aims to advance evidence-based, clinically grounded approaches to the psychiatric care of adolescents affected by migration and social disadvantage. The collection will bring together empirical, clinical, and conceptual contributions that examine psychosocial and psychological interventions, acculturation-informed care, and equity-focused clinical practice within the framework of child and adolescent psychiatry, with the aim of generating actionable guidance for clinicians, services, and policy.This Research Topic welcomes empirical (clinical, longitudinal, and intervention-based), methodological, and conceptual contributions on adolescent psychiatric outcomes and clinical care in the context of migration and social disadvantage. Submissions may address, but are not limited to:• Evidence-based psychological and psychosocial intervention models for immigrant, refugee, and socially disadvantaged adolescents, including cultural and linguistic adaptation of established clinical protocols.• Neuropsychological resilience and emotional regulation in adversity-exposed youth, and the clinical mechanisms through which these capacities can be supported.• Clinical implications of acculturation, identity formation, and discrimination for adolescent psychiatric outcomes including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and self-harm.• Equity-focused care models that address structural barriers - access, language, stigma, service fragmentation - within clinical child and adolescent psychiatry settings.• Service-level and policy-relevant research on integrated, multidisciplinary models linking psychiatric, school-based, and community-based care for vulnerable adolescent populations.• Studies grounded in low- and middle-income or refugee-hosting settings, and contributions from authors with direct clinical experience of these populations, are especially encouraged.Submissions framed primarily through a social psychology, sociology, or general education lens, without a clear connection to adolescent psychiatric outcomes or clinical relevance, fall outside the scope of this collection.If you were not directly invited by the Topic Editors but wish to submit, you are welcome to do so; however, please contact us at childandadolescentpsychiatry@frontiersin.org before submitting and wait for our confirmation that your manuscript is within scope. Topic editors: Maria E. Theodoratou, MARIOS ARGYRIDES, Alexandros Argyriadis Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/82612/adversity-migration-and-adolescent-mental-health-evidence-based-interventions-and-clinical-outcomes