Youth mental health now in 'global crisis', according to study

The study, published by The Lancet Psychiatry Journal and titled the Commission on Youth Mental Health, finds the overall need for mental health support for people in this age bracket has jumped 50% over the past two decades. Picture: Anna Gowthorpe/PA

The mental health of young people is now in “global crisis”, according to the authors of a new study, who are calling for the problem to be made an “international health priority”.

Mental illness now accounts for 45% of the overall burden of disease internationally in people aged between 10 and 24, the latest research has found.

The study, published by The Lancet Psychiatry Journal and titled the Commission on Youth Mental Health, finds the overall need for mental health support for people in this age bracket has jumped 50% over the past two decades.

It claims that mental illnesses have a peak age onset of 15 years, with up to 75% of such onsets having manifested themselves by the age of 25. This represents the “inverse” of physical illnesses, according to the study’s authors, which include UCD’s Professor Barbara Dooley.

“Unless treated effectively, mental illnesses are a major cause of premature death from physical illness and suicide,” the study states.

“Even when these illnesses do not cause death, they are the largest and most rapidly growing cause of disability and lost human potential and productivity across the lifespan,” it adds.

It cites intergenerational inequality, unregulated social media, precarious employment, a lack of access to housing, and the climate crisis as the principal factors “driving a global surge in mental ill health among youth”.

The research underlines the “urgent need” to address those factors in order to curb the extent to which they are contributing to the rates of premature death, disability, and “lost human potential”.

Lead author Professor Patrick McGorry, an Australian academic originally from Ireland, says the report represents a “major step” towards the recognition of youth mental health as an “international health priority”.

The commission itself was first formed in July 2019 at a meeting bringing together both mental health experts and researchers and those with lived experience of such illness, together with young people from a range of income brackets.

Its findings were compiled by researchers from Australia, Europe, North America, and Asia in order to include “a range of perspectives”.

In terms of broad strategies which could be used to reduce the impact of mental health struggles on young people, the paper suggests identifying “harmful political, economic and social policies” and reversing and mitigating them.

It cites the need to reverse “intergenerational inequality and wealth transfer”, which it says has “increased the socioeconomic precarity of young people in many countries”.

The research further calls for the improvement of housing and rental affordability as a proportion of average incomes, while reversing the trend towards the “commodification and privatisation of education”.

Regarding the very present social issues of climate change and social media anxiety, the study calls for policies designed to “genuinely respond” to the climate emergency and to “limit the harm” caused to the mental health of young people using “unregulated social media platforms”.