Stories Chronicle Success in Improving Child and Adolescent Mental Health

Posted on March 13, 2024 by Lina Saintus

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Innovations in Informatics

PHII’s Lina Saintus highlights successful ways public health organizations have used data to measure and improve child and adolescent mental health (CAMH).

What do public health nurses in Minnesota schools, a partnership serving North Carolina children and youth, and an integrated data system in South Carolina have in common? They all illustrate successful ways organizations have used data to measure and improve child and adolescent mental health (CAMH).

Mental health challenges for youth are at an all-time high. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey, more than 42% of U.S. students reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless with nearly one-third experiencing poor mental health. More than 22% of students seriously considered attempting suicide.

Concerns about youth mental health challenges resulted in U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issuing an advisory in December 2021 emphasizing the need to support youth mental health and well-being.

Even before the Surgeon General’s advisory, the Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII) explored leveraging informatics approaches to increase the capacity of public health agencies to track and improve CAMH. We collaborated with CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD) to develop a playbook that can be used to begin assessing CAMH at the population level.

We also documented the success stories of those using CAMH data to measure and improve child and adolescent health and well-being. Read more about their approaches.

Minnesota: public health nurses play a valuable role with students in schools

Olmsted County, Minnesota, has a long-held understanding and appreciation of the valuable role public health nurses (PHNs) perform in identifying and responding to public health issues, especially when it comes to children and families. In 2019, data from a health needs assessment and the Minnesota Student Survey identified youth suicide prevention and increasing access to mental health services as two of the county’s highest priorities.

Public Health nurse Katie Austin (pink shirt) leads students during a NatureRX program in Olmsted County, Minnesota.

As a result of a collaboration between Olmsted County Public Health Services and Olmsted County schools, 10 PHNs currently work directly with students enrolled across 58 schools. The nurses provide individual student care and promote the health and well-being of the broader school community. This collaboration has improved the ability of PHNs to assess health needs in schools and implement data-driven interventions in response to identified needs. The nurses work within the schools and classrooms to provide education on a variety of health topics, including mental health awareness and suicide prevention.

Read Olmsted County’s story.

North Carolina: linking data across state agencies to integrate care for children

North Carolina Integrated Care for Kids (NC InCK) is unifying care and services to improve children’s health and well-being. NC InCK represents a partnership among the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS), Duke University School of Medicine and the University of North Carolina (UNC) Health System—supported with funding from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Through this partnership, NC InCK aims to better understand the needs of children and youth, integrate services across sectors, and focus healthcare resources on the issues that matter most to children, youth and families.

In 2020, a group of leaders from the NC DHHS, Duke and UNC recognized an opportunity to build an innovative model to improve care for children and families insured by Medicaid throughout a five-county region. When the federal government released a funding opportunity through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Office (CMMI), leaders developed a funding application to support the creation of NC InCK. The NC InCK leadership team built a coalition of child health leaders from across the region and state. The coalition includes public and private groups within the healthcare system (e.g., healthcare providers, insurance companies) and those from core child service entities outside of healthcare (e.g., schools, childcare programs for infants and toddlers).

Read NC InCK’s story.

South Carolina: integrated data system fosters collaboration across public agencies

State agencies and programs generate a great deal of data; however, these data usually remain in siloed databases that do not allow for exchange or use across agencies and programs. As a result, agencies may be limited in using data from multiple sources to make informed decisions that promote and protect public health.

South Carolina Revenue and Fiscal Affairs (RFA) addressed its data sharing challenge by creating an integrated data system (IDS), which combines data from more than 20 state agencies and programs. The data from the IDS are currently being used to support work that enhances program outcomes and policy initiatives across South Carolina.

Read South Carolina’s story.

View other CAMH resources.

Author Profile

Lina Saintus: Lina Saintus, DrPH, MPH, PMP, serves as a Project Team Lead in PHII’s Practice Support Unit. She works on the CAMH project team. Prior to this role, Lina served as a Public Health Informatics Fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.