Global research priorities for youth mental health

Abstract

Aim: Over the past two decades, the youth mental health field has expanded and advanced considerably. Yet, mental disorders continue to disproportionately affect adolescents and young adults. Their prevalence and associated morbidity and mortality in young people have not substantially reduced, with high levels of unmet need and poor access to evidence-based treatments even in high-income countries. Despite the potential return on investment, youth mental disorders receive insufficient funding. Motivated by these continual disparities, we propose a strategic agenda for youth mental health research.Method: Youth mental health experts and funders convened to develop youth mental health research priorities, via thematic roundtable discussions, that address critical evidence-based gaps. Results: Twenty-one global youth mental health research priorities were developed, including population health, neuroscience, clinical staging, novel interventions, technology, socio-cultural factors, service delivery, translation and implementation.Conclusions: These priorities will focus attention on, and provide a basis for, a systematic and collaborative strategy to globally improve youth mental health outcomes. K E Y W O R D S mental health, research priorities, youth

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“…There is general agreement on the importance of identifying youth mental health needs to improve preventive strategies and early intervention [2]. Despite the progress achieved over the past two decades, the number of studies conducted in the Arab world is scarce.…”

“…detection, prevention and intervention during adolescence can help reduce the burden of mental illness [2][3][4]. To this end, understanding the characteristics, perceived stressors, and pathways to care of youth who develop mental illness is critical to early detection and treatment.…”

Self‐compassion for youth in small city centres: A school‐based pilot project

“…Subsequently, the CBPR team refined the Mindful‐Based Self‐Compassion programme (Neff & Germer, 2013) for youth living in a small city centre. The CBPR team also determined that maximum intervention benefit would be for youth undergoing the transition to high school, when mental health symptoms increase (Mei et al., 2020), self‐compassion decreases (Bluth et al., 2017), educational struggles amalgamate (Sutton et al., 2018) and academic disengagement intensifies (Olivier et al., 2020). Furthermore, a school setting was determined to be the desired location for the intervention because rural youth living on peripheries of small city centres struggle to access services outside the school setting (Boydell et al., 2006).…”

Can We Build ‘Somewhere That You Want to Go’? Conducting Collaborative Mental Health Service Design with New Zealand’s Young People

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