Editors’ Note
Editors’ Note and Special Communication: Research Priorities in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Emerging From the COVID-19 Pandemic

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2021.03.005Get rights and content

Over the last year, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in profound disruptions across the globe, with school closures, social isolation, job loss, illness, and death affecting the lives of children and families in myriad ways. In an Editors' Note in our June 2020 issue,1 our senior editorial team described this Journal’s role in advancing knowledge in child and adolescent mental health during the pandemic and outlined areas we identified as important for science and practice in our field. Since then, the Journal has published articles on the impacts of the pandemic on child and adolescent mental health and service systems,2, 3, 4, 5 which are available in a special collection accessible through the Journal’s website.6 Alongside many opinion papers, the pace of publication of empirical research in this area is rapidly expanding, covering important issues such as increased frequency of mental health symptoms among children and adolescents3,5,7, 8, 9, 10 and changes in patterns of clinical service use such as emergency department visits.11, 12, 13, 14

As the Senior Editors prepared that Editors’ Note, they were acutely aware that the priorities that they identified were broad and generated by only a small group of scientists and clinicians. Although this had the advantage of enabling us to get this information out to readers quickly, we decided that a more systematic approach to developing recommendations for research priorities would be of greater long-term value. We were particularly influenced by the efforts of the partnership between the UK Academy of Medical Scientists and a UK mental health research charity (MQ: Transforming Mental Health) to detail COVID-19−related research priorities for “Mental Health Science” that was published online by Holmes et al. in The Lancet Psychiatry in April 2020.15 Consistent with its focus on mental health research across the lifespan, several recommendations highlighted child development and children's mental health. However, a more detailed assessment of research priorities related to child and adolescent mental health was beyond the scope of that paper. Furthermore, the publication of that position paper preceded the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020, which re-energized efforts to acknowledge and to address racism and healthcare disparities in the United States and many other countries.

To build upon the JAACAP Editors’ Note1 and the work of Holmes et al.,15 we conducted an international survey of professionals—practitioners and researchers—working on child and adolescent development and pediatric mental health to identify concerns about the impact of the pandemic on children, adolescents, and their families, as well as what is helping families navigate these impacts, and the specific research topics that are of greatest importance.

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The authors have reported no funding for this work.

This study was determined to be exempt from human subjects regulations by the Colorado Multiple Institutional Review Board.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: Novins, Stoddard, Althoff, Charach, Cortese, Cullen, Frazier, Glatt, Henderson, Herringa, Hulvershorn, Kieling, McBride, McCauley, Middeldorp, Reiersen, Rockhill, Sagot, Scahill, Simonoff, Stewart, Szigethy, Taylor, White, Zima

Data curation: Novins

Formal analysis: Novins, Stoddard, Althoff, Charach, Cortese, Cullen, Frazier, Glatt, Henderson, Hulvershorn, Kieling, McBride, McCauley, Middeldorp, Reiersen, Rockhill, Sagot, Scahill, Simonoff, Szigethy, Taylor

Investigation: Novins, Stoddard, Althoff, Charach, Cortese, Cullen, Frazier, Glatt, Henderson, Herringa, Hulvershorn, Kieling, McBride, McCauley, Middeldorp, Reiersen, Rockhill, Sagot, Scahill, Simonoff, Stewart, Szigethy, Taylor, White, Zima

Methodology: Novins, Stoddard, Althoff, Charach, Cortese, Cullen, Frazier, Glatt, Henderson, Herringa, Hulvershorn, Kieling, McBride, McCauley, Middeldorp, Reiersen, Rockhill, Sagot, Scahill, Simonoff, Stewart, Szigethy, Taylor, White, Zima

Project administration: Novins

Resources: Novins, Stoddard

Software: Novins, Stoddard

Supervision: Novins

Validation: Novins, Stoddard, Althoff, Charach, Cortese, Cullen, Frazier, Glatt, Henderson, Hulvershorn, Kieling, McBride, McCauley, Middeldorp, Reiersen, Rockhill, Sagot, Scahill, Simonoff, Szigethy, Taylor

Visualization: Novins

Writing – original draft: Novins, Stoddard

Writing – review and editing: Novins, Stoddard, Althoff, Charach, Cortese, Cullen, Frazier, Glatt, Henderson, Herringa, Hulvershorn, Kieling, McBride, McCauley, Middeldorp, Reiersen, Rockhill, Sagot, Scahill, Simonoff, Stewart, Szigethy, Taylor, White, Zima

ORCID

Douglas K. Novins, MD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4475-8596

Joel Stoddard, MD, MAS: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4070-4566

Robert R. Althoff, MD, PhD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5673-7613

Alice Charach, MD, MSc, FRCPC: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9756-4328

Samuele Cortese, MD, PhD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5877-8075

Kathryn Regan Cullen, MD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9631-3770

Jean A. Frazier, MD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7055-3530

Stephen J. Glatt, PhD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0360-7567

Schuyler W. Henderson, MD, MPH: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9271-2846

Ryan J. Herringa, MD, PhD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1936-7959

Leslie Hulvershorn, MD, MSc: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5827-4889

Christian Kieling, MD, PhD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7691-4149

Anne B. McBride, MD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6320-4831

Elizabeth McCauley, PhD, ABPP: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9763-9262

Christel Middeldorp, MD, PhD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6218-0428

Angela M. Reiersen, MD, MPE: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3203-4590

Carol M. Rockhill, MD, PhD, MPH: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5799-9706

Adam J. Sagot, DO, FAPA: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4393-5346

Lawrence Scahill, PhD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5073-1707

Emily Simonoff, MD, FRCPsych: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5450-0823

S. Evelyn Stewart, MD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0994-6383

Eva Szigethy, MD, PhD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6783-581X

Jerome H. Taylor, MD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2787-6232

Tonya White, MD, PhD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0271-1896

Bonnie T. Zima, MD, PhD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5542-1879

The authors consist of members of the Masthead of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and its companion journal, JAACAP Connect. The authors acknowledge the contributions of Nicole King Cotton, MD, of Morehouse School of Medicine, Stacy S. Drury, MD, PhD, of Tulane University, Lesha D. Shah, MD, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Chad M. Sylvester, MD, PhD, of Washington University School of Medicine, and Peter Szatmari, MD, of University of Toronto, in the design of the survey methods. The authors also acknowledge the contributions of Mary K. Billingsley, ELS, JAACAP Managing Editor, in editing this manuscript and preparing it for publication.

Disclosure: Dr. Novins has received grant or research support from the National Institutes of Health and the Administration for Children and Families. Dr. Stoddard has received grant or research support from the National Institute of Mental Health. He has served as a DSMB committee member: Threat Interpretation Bias as Cognitive Marker and Treatment Target in Pediatric Anxiety (R61 Phase). Dr. Althoff has received grant or research support from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation. He has served on the editorial board of Child Psychiatry and Human Development and as consulting editor of the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. He has received honoraria from Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Academy and Frontline Medical Communications, Inc. He is a partner of WISER Systems, LLC. Dr. Charach has received grants or research funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Ontario Ministry of Health, the University of Toronto Department of Psychiatry, the University of Toronto Edwin S.H. Leong Centre for Healthy Children, and SickKids Centre for Brain and Mental Health. Dr. Cortese has served as deputy editor of Evidence-Based Mental Health, associate editor of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, and on the editorial boards of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, and CNS Drugs. He has received honoraria from the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, the British Association for Psychopharmacology, Healthcare Convention, and the Canadian ADHD Resource Alliance. Dr. Cullen has received grants from the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the University of Minnesota. She has served on a grant review committee for NIH and received honoraria. She has received honoraria for serving on an advisory committee for the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Frazier has received grant or research support from the the National Institute of Mental Health, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Fulcrum Therapeutics, and Roche. She has served on the editorial board of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry and as associate editor of the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology. Dr. Glatt has received grant or research support from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. He has served as a consultant to Cohen Veterans Bioscience. He has received book royalties from Oxford University Press. Dr. Herringa has received grant or research support from the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Hulvershorn has received grant or research support from the National Institutes of Health, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Indiana Family and Social Services Agency, Merck, and Greenwich Biosciences. Dr. Kieling has received research support from Brazilian governmental research funding agencies: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (Fapergs); from the UK funding agencies MQ: Transforming Mental Health, the Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Royal Academy of Engineering; and from the US National Institutes of Health. He has served on the editorial boards of Archives of Clinical Psychiatry, Global Mental Health, Jornal Brasileiro de Psiquiatria, and Social Science and Medicine - Mental Health. He has received authorship royalties from Brazilian publishers Artmed and Editora Manole. Dr. McBride has received royalties from American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. Dr. McCauley has received grant or research support from the National Institute of Mental Health, the Institute of Education Sciences - US Department of Education, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the Scooty Fund. She has served as a consultant to King County Public Health—School-Based Mental Health Programs and School Mental Health, Ontario. She has received honoraria for trainings for school-based mental health providers on a Brief Intervention for School Clinicians (BRISC). She has received book royalties from Guilford Press for Behavioral Activation with Adolescents: A Clinician's Guide and Academic Media Solutions for a psychology textbook. Dr. Middeldorp has received grant or research support from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the European Union, the National Mental Health Research Committee, and the Australian ADHD Professional Association. She has served as associate editor of the American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B. Dr. Reiersen has received grant or research support from the National Institutes of Health, the McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience, the McDonnell Center for Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology, the Taylor Family Institute for Innovative Psychiatric Treatment at Washington University, Fast Grants, and the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund. Washington University has applied for a patent related to methods of treating COVID-19 invented by Dr. Reiersen. She has received travel support from the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Department, Region Zealand (Denmark hospital). Dr. Scahill has received grant or research support from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the US Department of Defense, and the Marcus Foundation. He is a co-author of the Children's Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (CYBOCS), the Children's Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale modified for Autism Spectrum Disorder (CYBOCS-ASD), and the Parent-Rated Anxiety Scale for youth with autism spectrum disorders (PRAS-ASD). He has served as a consultant to Roche, Impel NeuroPharma, Inc., Yamo Pharmaceuticals, and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. He has served as associate editor of the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology and on the editorial board of the International Journal of Developmental Disabilities. He has received royalties from Guilford Press, Oxford University Press, and American Psychiatric Association Publishing. Dr. Simonoff has received grant or research support from the UK National Institute of Health Research, the European Commission, the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the UK Medical Research Council, the National Institute of Health Research Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley Foundation, the Psychiatry Research Trust, the Guy's and St. Thomas’ Charitable Foundation Trust, and the Maudsley Charity. She has served on the advisory boards of the European ADHD Guidelines Group, Eunethydis, the Autistica Mental Health Steering Group, the National Autism Project Board, the Medical Research Council Neuroscience and Mental Health Board, the Central Institute for Mental Health, Manheim, Germany, and the Oak Foundation. She is author of the assessment tools Assessment of Consuming Behaviour (copyright, Santosh and Simonoff, manuscript in preparation) and Observation Schedule for Children with Autism (in preparation). She has served on the editorial board of the British Journal of Psychiatry. She has received honoraria from the Royal College of Physicians as Senior Clinical Advisor for the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence. Dr. Stewart has received grant or research support from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, the British Columbia Ministry of Health and the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. She has served on the Scientific and Clinical Advisory Board of the International OCD Foundation and on the Scientific Advisory Committee of Anxiety Canada. She has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Annals of Clinical Psychiatry, and the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. She authored the OCD Family Functioning (OFF) Scale and the Guilford Press book OCD in Children and Adolescents: The OCD is Not the Boss of Me Handbook. She has received honoraria from the University of Colorado for 2019-20 Brewster Visiting Professorship, the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Aarhus University, Denmark. She has received anonymous donor funding support. Dr. Szigethy has received grant or research support from the National Institutes of Health and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. She has received book royalties from APPI for co-editing Cognitive-Behavior Therapy for Children and Adolescents. She has served on the speakers’ bureau of Janssen. Dr. White has received grant or research support from the Sophia Children's Hospital Foundation, the Dutch Research Council (Nationale wetenschappelijke organisatie; NWO), and the US National Institutes of Health. She has served on the scientific advisory board/DSMB of the University of Bergen Center for Brain Plasticity. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Aperture Neuro and has served on the editorial board of Neuroinformatics. Dr. Zima has received grant or research support from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the California Mental Health Services Act (SB82-833), and the California Bureau for Cannabis Control. She has served as deputy editor to the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology and as consulting editor to the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and the Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Drs. Henderson, Rockhill, Sagot, and Taylor have reported no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.

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© 2021 American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.