Grant: Operating Grant

Mental health, the ability to regulate our emotions and behaviour and to cope with stress, is essential to development and life quality for all children. Yet very little is known today about the mental health of Canadian children. Since the last major study of childhood mental health, the Ontario Child Health Study (OCHS) carried out by our group in 1983, there have been changes in Canada which may put children at risk. These changes include increases in income inequality, in family dissolution, in the growth of visible minorities, perceptions of discrimination and in neighbourhood poverty. We therefore propose to study the mental health of a representative sample of Ontario children and adolescents aged 4-18 years (n=10,530) living in 7,020 families and 180 neighbourhoods and attending 240 schools throughout the province. The study is a sequel to OCHS and will be done in collaboration with Statistics Canada. The study has five objectives: (1) to estimate the prevalence of childhood mental disorders such as depression, anxiety and ADHD; (2) to assess how these disorders may be linked with other chronic health conditions and with social and academic difficulties; (3) to examine the extent to which families with children exhibiting mental health needs are receiving mental health programs and services; (4) to determine if the prevalence of childhood mental disorders has increased between 1983 and 2013, in association with increases in socio-economic inequalities; and (5) to investigate the larger contextual (family, neighbourhood, school) influences on risk for childhood mental disorder. Information will be collected from parents, teachers and older children, and from administrative records available from Ontario service providers. Results will be shared with policymakers, who are collaborating on the study, and with the public for purposes of informing the development of new programs and policies to benefit children in Ontario and beyond.