Book excerpt: Mental health is a cornerstone of young peoples’ well-being and increasingly a topic of concern. The foundation of mental health is largely laid in adolescence, and more than half of adult mental health disorders have their onset before the age of 14 . Mental health problems are becoming a leading cause of disease burden amongst adolescents globally, affecting their achievement of developmental tasks, socially, personally and academically. Poor adolescent mental health has been linked with poor long-term adult health morbidity and mortality. Optimal mental health requires a positive sense of wellbeing in addition to the absence of clinically significant, active mental illness. Monitoring adolescent mental health is key for understanding whether efforts to improve young people’s mental health at a national and international level are successful. The last decades have seen great changes in young peoples’ lives, including technological advancement and the COVID pandemic. In examining the pathways to adolescent mental health, the proposed research topic will contribute to a better understanding on how this ongoing crisis has affected adolescents.