Meeting the need of children’s mental health
- Submission status
- Closed
- Submission deadline
Worldwide, 10% of children and adolescents experience a diagnosable mental health condition, with up to 20% or more in some countries. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death among adolescents, and only a fraction of those children and adolescents who need mental health services access them. Emerging data during the COVID-19 pandemic indicates that mental health needs for today’s children and adolescents are at an all-time high, population-wide, due in part to the ubiquity of stress related to negative experiences in home, school, community, and digital environments, including exposure to violence and other adverse experiences, bullying, discrimination, grief and loss, socioeconomic factors and social influencers of health and education. Some countries have declared a children’s mental health crisis and/or state of emergency as a call to action for investment in multisector systems change to promote youth mental health and wellbeing. This collection will feature empirical and theoretical publications focused on systemic innovations and solutions to meet the volume and breadth of children’s mental health needs. We aim to feature international scholarship representing perspectives, evidence, and lessons learned. We welcome submissions that address topics such as the following:
-
Epidemiological studies or surveillance system data to monitor children’s mental health needs and service utilization trends
-
Actuarial methods (e.g. cost-benefit analyses, return on investment analyses, and machine learning) to systematically identify disparities in access or outcomes, vulnerabilities or disproportionalities experienced by populations, and gaps in child-serving systems to inform data-driven systems change and quality improvement
-
Models to expand capacity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including lay or community healthcare workers, peer-to-peer support models, or telehealth
-
Use of technology and digital solutions to expand equitable access to care (e.g. mobile applications for self-guided interventions or self-help, telehealth care models)
-
Non-traditional mental health care settings such as schools, healthcare, and community-based organizations as well as opportunities for and examples of multisector or cross-system collaboration to expand access to mental health supports and prevent the need for utilization of higher levels of care
-
Financing solutions and economic perspectives for sustainable children’s mental health prevention, promotion, early identification, and/or treatment via public or private delivery systems.
-
Public health or education policy at national, regional, or local levels to expand capacity to meet the mental health needs of children and their families equitably and effectively.
Editors
-
Elizabeth Connors
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine.
-
Linda Mayes
Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychology and Director of the Yale Child Study Center.
