Catalyzing upstream mental health promotion and prevention through the development of the Youth Development Instrument

Summary: Mental illness and substance use disorders (MSUDs) create a substantial health and economic burden in Canada, with one in two Canadians experiencing an MSUD by age 40 and an estimated $51 billion in costs yearly. An estimated 75% of MSUDs have their genesis before the age of 25 years, affecting 7.5 million Canadian children and youth. Social and emotional learning (SEL) and positive childhood experiences like supportive family relationships, community belonging, and coping skills, as well as structural supports like improving access to care, are protective and can avert or delay mental illness onset and/or severity. Yet 95% of health system funding is dedicated to specialized, hospital-based or downstream services, creating compelling potential for early intervention and prevention programming. Today’s Grand Rounds describes how the Youth Development Instrument (YDI), a survey of youth mental health and well-being among BC Grade 11 students, will inform strategies to reduce mental illness incidence. The YDI builds on existing BC child development data collected for over 400,000 children at age 5, 9 and 12 years by the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP-UBC), creating a longitudinal cohort by linking student data. Cohort data will be linked with health services data to identify modifiable factors predicting mental illness. Inter-ministerial and intersectoral YDI advisory boards representing education, social work, public health and health services with central leadership from young people themselves guide project delivery and translation of findings into practice. Bios: Dr. Hasina Samji an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University and a Senior Scientist at the BC Centre for Disease Control. She has a PhD in Infectious Disease Epidemiology (Johns Hopkins) and studies how synergistic epidemics, or “syndemics,” of illnesses like HIV, HCV, and mental illness and substance use disorder interacting with contextual factors like poverty and early life trauma can create mutually reinforcing clusters of epidemics among populations, resulting in poorer access to healthcare and outcomes. Dr. Samji leads the Youth Development Instrument (YDI), an interdisciplinary study measuring predictors of positive youth well-being, mental health, and development in high school students in collaboration with the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP-UBC), community, clinical and policy partners, and youth themselves. The YDI will elucidate upstream skill-development and structural supports for STBBI prevention. She is also the co-PI of a study in partnership with Anxiety Canada to measure the mental health impacts of the COVID-19: https://www.bcchr.ca/POP/our-research/pics Dr. Martin Guhn is Associate Professor at the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), School of Population and Public Health, UBC, and member of the Canadian Council on the Social Determinants of Health. He has a PhD in Human Development (UBC), conducted a Michael Smith Foundation of Health Research postdoctoral fellowship in Population Health at HELP, and has a master’s degree in Psychology and a bachelor degree in Music. His interdisciplinary, applied research focuses on social, cultural, demographic, and socio-economic determinants of children’s and adolescents’ developmental health, wellbeing, and educational trajectories. This research draws from population-level data linkages, and the EDI, MDI, TDI, CHEQ, and YDI research projects. Further research interests include children’s social and emotional development, bio-ecological theories of human development, and validation of population-level assessment. A primary goal of this research is to contribute to policy decision making and community-based knowledge mobilization that helps all children thrive.

BC CDC Presenters

3/2/2021 8:00:00 PM