Editors' Note and Special Communication: Research Priorities in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Emerging From the COVID-19 Pandemic

TY - JOUR

T1 - Editors' Note and Special Communication

T2 - Research Priorities in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Emerging From the COVID-19 Pandemic

AU - Novins, Douglas K

AU - Stoddard, Joel

AU - Althoff, Robert R

AU - Charach, Alice

AU - Cortese, Samuele

AU - Cullen, Kathryn Regan

AU - Frazier, Jean A

AU - Glatt, Stephen J

AU - Henderson, Schuyler W

AU - Herringa, Ryan J

AU - Hulvershorn, Leslie

AU - Kieling, Christian

AU - McBride, Anne B

AU - McCauley, Elizabeth

AU - Middeldorp, Christel M

AU - Reiersen, Angela M

AU - Rockhill, Carol M

AU - Sagot, Adam J

AU - Scahill, Lawrence

AU - Simonoff, Emily

AU - Stewart, S Evelyn

AU - Szigethy, Eva

AU - Taylor, Jerome H

AU - White, Tonya

AU - Zima, Bonnie T

N1 - Funding Information: The authors have reported no funding for this work. Disclosure: Dr. Novins has received grant or research support from the National Institutes of Health and the Administration for Children and Families. Dr. Stoddard has received grant or research support from the National Institute of Mental Health. He has served as a DSMB committee member: Threat Interpretation Bias as Cognitive Marker and Treatment Target in Pediatric Anxiety (R61 Phase). Dr. Althoff has received grant or research support from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation. He has served on the editorial board of Child Psychiatry and Human Development and as consulting editor of the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. He has received honoraria from Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Academy and Frontline Medical Communications, Inc. He is a partner of WISER Systems, LLC. Dr. Charach has received grants or research fu

PY - 2021/5

Y1 - 2021/5

N2 - Over the last year, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in profound disruptions across the globe, with school closures, social isolation, job loss, illness, and death affecting the lives of children and families in myriad ways. In an Editors' Note in our June 2020 issue, 1 our senior editorial team described this Journal's role in advancing knowledge in child and adolescent mental health during the pandemic and outlined areas we identified as important for science and practice in our field. Since then, the Journal has published articles on the impacts of the pandemic on child and adolescent mental health and service systems, 2-5 which are available in a special collection accessible through the Journal's website. 6 Alongside many opinion papers, the pace of publication of empirical research in this area is rapidly expanding, covering important issues such as increased frequency of mental health symptoms among children and adolescents 3,5,7-10 and changes in patterns of clinical service use such as emergency department visits. 11-14 As the Senior Editors prepared that Editors’ Note, they were acutely aware that the priorities that they identified were broad and generated by only a small group of scientists and clinicians. Although this had the advantage of enabling us to get this information out to readers quickly, we decided that a more systematic approach to developing recommendations for research priorities would be of greater long-term value. We were particularly influenced by the efforts of the partnership between the UK Academy of Medical Scientists and a UK mental health research charity (MQ: Transforming Mental Health) to detail COVID-19−related research priorities for “Mental Health Science” that was published online by Holmes et al. in The Lancet Psychiatry in April 2020. 15 Consistent with its focus on mental health research across the lifespan, several recommendations highlighted child development and children's mental health. However, a more detailed assessment of research priorities related to child and adolescent mental health was beyond the scope of that paper. Furthermore, the publication of that position paper preceded the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020, which re-energized efforts to acknowledge and to address racism and healthcare disparities in the United States and many other countries. To build upon the JAACAP Editors’ Note 1 and the work of Holmes et al., 15 we conducted an international survey of professionals—practitioners and researchers—working on child and adolescent development and pediatric mental health to identify concerns about the impact of the pandemic on children, adolescents, and their families, as well as what is helping families navigate these impacts, and the specific research topics that are of greatest importance.

AB - Over the last year, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in profound disruptions across the globe, with school closures, social isolation, job loss, illness, and death affecting the lives of children and families in myriad ways. In an Editors' Note in our June 2020 issue, 1 our senior editorial team described this Journal's role in advancing knowledge in child and adolescent mental health during the pandemic and outlined areas we identified as important for science and practice in our field. Since then, the Journal has published articles on the impacts of the pandemic on child and adolescent mental health and service systems, 2-5 which are available in a special collection accessible through the Journal's website. 6 Alongside many opinion papers, the pace of publication of empirical research in this area is rapidly expanding, covering important issues such as increased frequency of mental health symptoms among children and adolescents 3,5,7-10 and changes in patterns of clinical service use such as emergency department visits. 11-14 As the Senior Editors prepared that Editors’ Note, they were acutely aware that the priorities that they identified were broad and generated by only a small group of scientists and clinicians. Although this had the advantage of enabling us to get this information out to readers quickly, we decided that a more systematic approach to developing recommendations for research priorities would be of greater long-term value. We were particularly influenced by the efforts of the partnership between the UK Academy of Medical Scientists and a UK mental health research charity (MQ: Transforming Mental Health) to detail COVID-19−related research priorities for “Mental Health Science” that was published online by Holmes et al. in The Lancet Psychiatry in April 2020. 15 Consistent with its focus on mental health research across the lifespan, several recommendations highlighted child development and children's mental health. However, a more detailed assessment of research priorities related to child and adolescent mental health was beyond the scope of that paper. Furthermore, the publication of that position paper preceded the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020, which re-energized efforts to acknowledge and to address racism and healthcare disparities in the United States and many other countries. To build upon the JAACAP Editors’ Note 1 and the work of Holmes et al., 15 we conducted an international survey of professionals—practitioners and researchers—working on child and adolescent development and pediatric mental health to identify concerns about the impact of the pandemic on children, adolescents, and their families, as well as what is helping families navigate these impacts, and the specific research topics that are of greatest importance.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85104961839&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.jaac.2021.03.005

DO - 10.1016/j.jaac.2021.03.005

M3 - Editorial

C2 - 33741474

SN - 0890-8567

VL - 60

SP - 544-554.e8

JO - Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

JF - Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

IS - 5

ER -