Mentalt helbred
(Mental health)
About the initiative
The sharp increase recorded in poor mental health is based to a significant degree on information from self-reports in surveys. We are aware that the increase already seen may therefore be due to some extent to changes in the ways in which we talk about and ask about young people’s mental health.
Working with the municipalities of Lejre and Kalundborg, we have interviewed a number of their personnel. We have also interviewed a number of young women of various ages, and have been given access to online communities. This work has given us better information about the dynamic factors that promote or hinder the development of mental health issues.
Why is the number of young people struggling with poor mental health seemingly still rising? We are attempting to get closer to an answer by comparing the trends in self-reported poor mental health with other measures of poor mental health in the available quantitative data, for example trends in the use of the health services and trends in diagnoses.
Through our efforts to understand and interpret the data and by having ongoing discussions of our interpretations with relevant experts, we are able to formulate a series of useful questions to which we can obtain answers from front-line practitioners working in our partner municipalities. The answers we obtain from our qualitative study can in turn suggest lines of enquiry which we can subsequently investigate in the data.
What’s next?
The project was completed in 2019 under the auspices of the ROCKWOOL Foundation. Find our knowledge in the list below.
