Youth Are the Experts! Youth Participatory Action Research to Address the Adolescent Mental Health Crisis.

ABSTRACT: Adolescent mental health is an urgent global public health issue. Youth participatory action research is an effective strategy to amplify youth voices and can serve as a catalyst for evidence-based action addressing the mental health crisis. To illustrate the benefits of youth participatory action research for informing community health, we describe an ongoing collaboration with a youth council located in the central coast of California, USA. Research methods included an anonymous online self-report survey to gather information about the mental health of high school students in 2020 (n = 176) and 2022 (n = 234), 93% Latinx/Mexican American. Both surveys included a four-item patient health questionnaire to screen for depression and anxiety risk, in addition to scaled and open-

SUBMITTER: Smith KE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10930985 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature