Deteriorating Mental Health Needs among Youth
Maria Vandoni
Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri IRCCS, Department of Health Policy, Laboratory of Quality Evaluation of Care and Services, Milan, Italy (maria.vandoni@marionegri.it)
Introduction
Historically, mental health of children, adolescents and young adults has been overlooked or given less priority compared to adult mental health. This disparity is reflected in the provision of services and policies, with children and adolescents mental health services (CAMHS) emerging more recently and, to date, inconsistently across countries (Signorini et al., 2017). The current mental health paradigm focuses on the treatment and management of fully established disorders in adulthood, neglecting the importance of early intervention and prevention strategies (Fusar-Poli et al., 2021). Moreover, the organization of mental health services, based on the differentiation between CAMHS and adult mental health services with 18 years of age…