Hospital contacts amongst high achieving adolescents from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds.

High achieving children from disadvantaged backgrounds are an important group for promoting social mobility. Prior research has found their educational achievement does not keep pace with their more socio-economically advantaged peers during secondary school, with early adolescence identified as a key period when their academic potential starts to go unfulfilled. This paper presents new evidence on the health outcomes of this group during this period, focusing on the contacts they make with hospital services due to mental health issues or risky health behaviours. We find high achieving children from disadvantaged backgrounds are hospitalised due to mental health issues and associated risky behaviours at a rate of around 80 per 1,000 children between the ages of 11 and 20. This is significantly above the rate of around 40 per 1,000 children for their equally able but more socio-economically advantaged peers. Our results hence provide further evidence that early adolescence is a key period during which high achieving children from disadvantaged backgrounds require further support. They may also suggest that mental health issues could be an important factor explaining in the poorer academic outcomes for high achieving disadvantaged young people.