The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 3: Good Health and Wellbeing, emphasize the importance of promoting mental health and well-being through prevention and treatment to reduce premature mortality and improve the quality of life for children and adolescents. In alignment with this ambition, the World Health Organization (WHO) and all the members of participating the SDGs have been taken actions to establish domain-specific healthcare system in children/adolescents and amplified public health services on pediatric health outcomes that broadly defined, particularly in mental disorders. Despite significant changes in disease epidemiology among children over recent decades, mental health problems remain a leading cause of disability and one of the largest contributors to disease burden in this population. Alarmingly, suicide reduction among children and adolescents, a key target of SDG 3, remains far from the expected goals. To address this gap between SDG 3 objectives and current progress, two-thirds of countries have established stand-alone policies for promoting mental health in children and adolescents. However, it remains unclear whether these practices are tangibly effective or helpful among broad children and adolescents.
Childhood and early adolescence are critical periods of vulnerability for developing mental health problems, which can have lifelong consequences. Given the significant physical and psychological changes during these stages, mental health disorders are increasingly prevalent in pediatric clinics. These disorders are influenced by complex interactions among neurodevelopmental factors, hormones, environmental exposures, cultural contexts, community dynamics, and societal influences. Despite huge efforts in the SDG 3, the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and suicides among children and adolescents continues to rise, posing a severe global concern that impedes immediate quality of life and sustainable well-being. Furthermore, the onset of neurodevelopmental disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and Intellectual Disabilities (ID) is increasingly being identified in early childhood, yet these conditions are often underdiagnosed in pediatric settings. Therefore, gaining deeper insights into the mental health outcomes and well-being of children and adolescents could enhance our understanding of SDG 3 achievements and inform the reframing of health policies and research directions for the latter half of the SDG 3 timeline.
This Research Topic aims to collect studies that elucidate the multifaceted associations between various factors and mental health outcomes in children and adolescents. These factors include SDG 3 practices, healthcare policies, public health services, social supports for struggling families, environmental exposures, chronic conditions, parental styles, cultural characteristics (e.g., stigma, LGBTQ+ issues), socioeconomic disparities, childhood experiences (e.g., youth engagement, early relational factor). Furthermore, what this Research Topic focuses is far beyond to diagnosis and other problematic health outcomes.
We are particularly welcome submissions illuminating how personal, parenting and societial interplay promote well-beings and positive mental health outcomes, such as satisfactory early friendship, positive parenting styles, positive youth engagement, positive childhood experiences, social supports for underprivileged families and primary mental healthacare. Moreover, we welcome submissions utilizing cutting-edge techniques or the-state-of-art computational models on population-level analysis, particularly from high-quality and novel data sources. We invite contributions in the forms of Original Research, Systematic Reviews, Quantitative Meta-analyses, and high-quality Perspectives/Commentaries. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following subtopics:
• Research evaluating the real-world benefits of SDG 3 practices on either promoting positive mental health outcomes or risking problematic mental health outcomes, in infants, children, and adolescents, including policy changes and healthcare system establishment.
• Studies on the epidemiology of mental health problems in infants, children, and adolescents under complex circumstances, such as pregnancy, stress, air pollution, socioeconomic status, and climate change.
• Empirical evidence identifying protective and risk factors contributing to mental health outcomes in infants, children, and adolescents.
• High-quality studies revealing biomarkers, identifying robust neural circuits, or delineating neurodevelopmental dynamics in children and adolescents diagnosed with psychiatric disorders (or comorbid conditions).
• Original research exploring novel data sources or leveraging cutting-edge techniques or innovative methods to resolve longstanding debates or address ongoing challenges in pediatric mental health and population-level studies.
• High-quality and transparent replication studies related to empirical research on mental health outcomes in children and adolescents.
Article types and fees
This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:
- Brief Research Report
- Case Report
- Classification
- Clinical Trial
- Community Case Study
- Data Report
- Editorial
- FAIR² Data
- FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
- … View all formats
Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.
Keywords: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Mental health, Children and adolescents, Neurodevelopmental disorders, Healthcare policies
Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
