Grant: Project Grant

Experiences in early childhood and adolescence have an enduring impact on life course mental health. For the current and forthcoming generations, the climate crisis and COVID-19 pandemic threaten to exacerbate mental health risks. Exposures including family socioeconomic disadvantage and discrimination can increase risks of future mental health problems, whereas safe and stable early environments can promote mental health. The interactions between risk and protective factors are complex: multiple social and physical exposures in children's early environments can combine to compound or attenuate developmental risks. Using an ecological systems model and intersectionality perspectives, our proposed research capitalizes on a unique longitudinal population-level data platform to investigate the impacts of multiple intersecting risk and protective factors across the early life course from birth to young adulthood. This data platform includes teacher and child/adolescent self reported mental health linked to birth, medical records, family and neighbourhood socio-demographic characteristics, and environmental exposures. Data measuring multiple contextual factors and the timing of exposures will enable us to assess associations between early life course mental health and key exposures of interest including parent mental health history, socio-economic status, green space, and events related to the pandemic and climate crisis. We will focus specifically on population sub-groups and communities typically under-represented in research including children living in rural and remote areas, children who are new to Canada, and children from families with socioeconomic disadvantages who may be disproportionately impacted by these exposures. We will utilize an integrated knowledge translation approach to provide contextualized and actionable evidence that health professionals, policy-makers, schools, and communities can use to improve child and youth mental health outcomes.