Where to Start?: An Exercise in Mapping Priority Areas for Adolescent Mental Health

Adolescent mental health is a vast and incredibly important topic. Half of all mental health conditions manifest by early adolescence, with 10–20 percent of all children and adolescents experiencing mental health conditions. Despite this harrowing statistic, the WHO-UNICEF-Lancet ‘A Future for the World’s Children’ report from February 2020 revealed that there has been little research on how to promote adolescent wellness and mental health on a large scale.

To help us gain a better understanding of the research landscape and the various themes within the mental health space, we commissioned The Governance Lab at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering to undertake a topic mapping exercise on adolescent mental health, with a focus on measurement and monitoring. 

Working together, we have been able to gain a better understanding of the gaps in current research, as well as the areas where we would be best placed to use data science to make an impact.

This work was completed primarily through desk based research, conducting searches of publicly available journals, conference programmes, reports and databases. Alongside the report, the team created a useful visual tool that highlights common research areas:  

To help further refine this tool, The GovLab held two workshops in June with experts in the field. It was great to also see some adolescent representation on these panels. The objectives were to better understand, crowdsource and identify any data gaps in adolescent mental health priorities, as well as to initiate a research agenda for adolescent mental health with a focus on measuring and monitoring. 

A key factor in developing this agenda will be the use of data and the formulation of data science projects that produce positive impacts for adolescents across these areas. We want to explore new ways of using data to improve progress across the research areas listed.  

The sessions were extremely useful, as they provided a platform for experts to collaborate and share ideas. Some key points of discussion included definitions of mental health, mental illness and stigma; the importance of mental health literacy; barriers to service access and the best ways to address the impacts of COVID-19. The experts also made clear that the relationships between different aspects of mental health are not always so clear cut, and it is important to clarify the causal relationships across different dimensions and aspects of mental health. 

We are looking forward to continuing our work in this area. Watch this space!