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Advancing child and adolescent mental health in the Western Pacific through international collaboration

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: The Western Pacific Region (WPR) encompasses countries with diverse cultures, geographies, populations, and levels of socioeconomic development.1 Across the region, child and adolescent mental health (CAMH) has increasingly emerged as a critical public health priority.2 As underscored throughout The Lancet Regional Health-Western Pacific Series, countries in WPR, regardless of income level, face common barriers to enhancing CAMH, including underinvestment, workforce shortages, fragmented services, stigma and discrimination, and limited data to inform evidencebased policy.[3][4][5] This Series offers a timely, first-of-itskind regional effort on CAMH in the WPR, uniting multidisciplinary experts from both the region and beyond.Indeed, international collaboration offers a pathway to address the barriers by generating and sharing evidence, mobilising resources and political commitment, enhancing health system capability and capacity, and promoting social governance and change-ultimately creating positive momentum that can sustainably foster CAMH in the WPR.Collaborative activities in CAMH may take many forms, such as joint research initiatives, regional policy frameworks, and capacity-building programmes.However, careful consideration is required to navigate potential ethical, cultural, and contextual challenges when implementing these collaborations.First, international collaboration is essential for knowledge exchange and innovative research.Robust, high-quality data and evidence are essential for effective CAMH policy and practice.6 Many countries in the WPR, though, lack adequate surveillance systems to assess prevalence, monitor trends, or evaluate interventions.International and regional research consortia can help fill these gaps through multi-country studies, culturally sensitive tools, and open-access data

Source: The Lancet Regional Health - Western Pacific

DOI: 10.1016/j.lanwpc.2025.101679

Authors: Jiang Long, Chunling Lu