Mental and Behavioral Health
Mental and behavioral health in adolescence covers the emotional, psychological, and behavioral conditions that commonly emerge during the second decade of life, together with the screening and care frameworks used to recognize them. Adolescence is the developmental window in which most lifetime mental disorders first appear, which makes this area central to adolescent health overall.
Definition
Adolescent mental and behavioral health is the field concerned with the recognition, epidemiology, and study of emotional, psychological, and behavioral conditions arising during adolescence, situated within the broader concept of mental health as a state of well-being and functioning.
Scope
This area orients the reader to the major mental and behavioral health topics of adolescence: depression and anxiety, substance use, eating disorders, self-injury and suicidal behavior, and the psychosocial screening that frames their detection. It is a reference overview that links to detailed topic entries; it describes conditions and the evidence around them rather than offering individual clinical advice.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- Which mental and behavioral conditions most commonly first appear during adolescence, and at what ages?
- How are these conditions recognized and screened for in adolescents across clinical and community settings?
- What is the global burden of adolescent mental disorders, and how is it distributed?
Key concepts
- Developmental onset of mental disorders in adolescence
- Internalizing and externalizing conditions
- Comorbidity across mental and behavioral conditions
- Psychosocial screening and assessment
- Global burden of adolescent mental illness
- Continuity of mental health from adolescence into adulthood
Clinical relevance
Because most lifetime mental disorders begin before adulthood, the adolescent period is widely treated as a strategic point for recognition and study of mental and behavioral conditions. This area describes how those conditions are distributed and detected; it is educational background for understanding adolescent health and is not a basis for individual diagnosis or treatment.
Epidemiology
Mental disorders are among the leading contributors to the burden of disease in young people. Meta-analytic estimates place the worldwide prevalence of any mental disorder in children and adolescents in the range of roughly one in seven, and U.S. survey data find that a large minority of adolescents meet criteria for a mental disorder at some point, with onset frequently in the early-to-mid teens. Global-burden analyses argue that conventional metrics may understate the true contribution of mental illness to disability.
History
Recognition of adolescent mental health as a distinct public-health priority grew through the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, as large epidemiological surveys documented the early onset of mental disorders and global-health analyses highlighted their burden in young people. The framing of youth mental health as a global challenge was crystallized in influential reviews in the 2000s.
Key figures
- Vikram Patel
- Kathleen Merikangas
- Guilherme Polanczyk
- Patrick McGorry
Related topics
Seminal works
- patel-2007
- merikangas-2010
- polanczyk-2015
Frequently asked questions
- Why is adolescence emphasized in mental health?
- Large epidemiological studies show that the majority of lifetime mental disorders have their onset before adulthood, often in the teenage years, making adolescence a focal period for recognizing and studying these conditions.
- What conditions does this area cover?
- It groups the major adolescent mental and behavioral topics: depression and anxiety, substance use, eating disorders, self-injury and suicidal behavior, and the psychosocial screening used to detect them.