Emergency Department Visits, Survey Results, Administrative Data: Leveraging Local Data Sources to Understand Trends in Adolescent Mental Health

Sophia Arabadjis , University of California Santa Barbara
Stuart H. Sweeney, University of California, Santa Barbara
Kira Argenio, New York
Sophia Day, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Office of School Health
Kevin J. Konty, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

As rates of depression and anxiety continue to rise, prevention and treatment of poor mental health in young adults is a major challenge for population health. A growing body of literature is focused on the built environment and neighborhood as potential factors in individual likelihood of anxiety, depression and irritability among youth. We contribute to this body of literature by incorporating geo-spatial determinants of both residential neighborhood factors as well as school neighborhood characteristics as factors influencing adolescent mental health. We combine three large data sets to explore geo-spatial determinants and mental health outcomes in New York City public high schools: 1) the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) collected from an anonymous sample of students, 2) the NYC Department of Education (DOE) school-level data for each school in the sample, and 3) student visits to the emergency room for a range of mental health cases from the Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS; a syndromic surveillance system). Leveraging this combined data we examine the role of school climate (as perceived by students), school neighborhood characteristics, and individual characteristics in adolescent mental health.

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 Presented in Session 85. Health, Wellbeing and Morbidity