PRB

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Resource Library

Family Planning/Digital Health Resource Library

The Digital Health Resource Library provides a list of key resources to enhance information sharing and learning across family planning stakeholders supporting digital health tools in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Featured resources include policy documents, reports, resource guides, and websites that describe the planning, implementation, policy, governance, and evaluation aspects of digital health programming in LMICs.

Addresses challenges facing digital health technologies, including fragmentation, sustainability, and interoperability. Outlines a systems-level approach to supporting partner countries in adopting digital health solutions.

Categorizes ways in which digital and mobile technologies are being used to support health system needs. Designed primarily for public health audiences.

Focuses on family planning and aim to provide a common language for various audiences to promote understanding of digital systems within a defined health program area.

Open-source web platform designed to help governments, technologists, implementers, and donors coordinate, strengthen, and scale digital health activities globally.

A collection of case studies across a range of digital health technologies enhancing family planning programs mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, but also globally.

Designed to help countries create and implement a platform to serve as the underlying infrastructure for an interoperable and integrated national digital health system.

Step-by-step guidance for governments and technical partners for planning, costing, and implementing interventions within a digital health enterprise.

A set of evidence-based family planning practices vetted by experts and documented in an easy-to-use format. Designed to build consensus around family planning solutions.

An interactive digital resource that tracks, monitors, and evaluates the use of digital technology for health across countries.

Consists of more than 3,900 participants across 117 countries that engage in information sharing and provide leadership in digital solutions for global public health.

Details six digital health resources and maturity models that are considered essential tools in the global effort to strengthen health data systems.

Focuses on global software goods, exploring the concept of shelf readiness and highlighting adaptations for COVID-19.

Describes the WHO’s global digital health approach, designed for use by all member states, including those with limited access to digital technologies, goods, and services.

Aims to enable the exchange of data between disparate health information systems to overcome barriers to data quantity, quality, and accessibility.

Designed to help countries and organizations holistically assess, plan, and prioritize interventions and Investments to strengthen a health information system.

Created to help USAID missions, governments, and health implementing organizations access information on a range of mHealth example programs.

Provides step-by-step guidance to improve the quality and value of monitoring and evaluation efforts for digital health interventions. Intended for implementers and researchers.

A framework for the development of a national eHealth vision, action plan, and monitoring approach. Can be applied by governments developing or revitalizing a national strategy.

Nine living guidelines intended to help digital development practitioners integrate established best practices into technology-enabled programs.

Describes the results of a content analysis of family planning digital platforms, including a quality assessment of 11 implemented tools that showed promise for scale.

PRB-Mental-Health-Background

Resource Library

The Mental Health Crisis Among American Youth

Understanding the pandemic’s role in an ongoing decline in the emotional well-being of U.S. children and young adults

Date

May 24, 2022

Author

Raquel Wojnar

Writer/Editor

Focus Area

Children, Youth, and Families COVID-19

May is Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States. As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year, many countries—including the United States—are experiencing a surge in mental health issues, especially among vulnerable populations.1

While children and young adults are less likely to become severely ill or die from the disease, their lives have been turned upside down by other effects of the pandemic, such as shuttered schools; increased economic insecurity; and increased family distress, including deaths of parents and other family members.2 These stresses have further exacerbated a youth mental health crisis in the United States that was apparent even before the pandemic.3

The following PRB resources shine a light on the mental health issues facing American youth, illuminating statistics, contributing factors, effects, and possible policy solutions for a looming national emergency.

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Sociologist Richard G. Rogers and coauthors examine why Americans ages 15 to 24 are twice as likely to die as their peers in other wealthy nations and recommend policy changes, including improving treatment for and prevention of mental illness and substance abuse among youth.

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Beth Jarosz, PRB program director and expert in child well-being, discusses the pandemic’s potential long-term impacts on American livelihood, with particular attention to the effects on infants, children, and young adults.

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For 18 years, the KidsData program has gathered and analyzed data on the health and well-being of children in California, home to more people under age 18 than any other U.S. state. Here, KidsData explores results from the national questionnaire Family Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Teen boy puts head in hand as mother lectures

From KidsData: The pandemic's effects on young people are of particular concern, as adverse childhood experiences (especially in early childhood) can have negative, long-term impacts on health and well-being.

Mother playing with her children at home

From KidsData: Reports from caregivers provide mounting evidence that they are highly concerned for their children’s well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the need for intervention may be great.

Young students running up stairs at the school

From KidsData: The suicide rate for youth in California and the United States was increasing even before COVID-19 entered the picture in 2020, and the pandemic’s extended social isolation and other stressors have presented newly compounding risk factors for suicide.

Doctor visits patient in hospital ward

From KidsData: Positive emotional health is critical to equipping young people for the challenges of growing up and living as healthy adults, yet the pandemic led to many new stressors for children, including disruptions and socioeconomic shifts.

Shadow of a girl with a bag

From KidsData: Youth who feel more connected to school are more likely to have a stronger sense of well-being. Data on suicidal ideation among California students before the COVID-19 pandemic suggest a relationship to school connectedness.

Group of Students with Backpacks Walking to School

From KidsData: Children often rely on schools to provide mental health services, but school closures during the pandemic made it difficult to access and preserve the quality of these services. Current analyses on the impact of COVID-19 can help inform best practices for promoting resilience.

References

[1] World Health Organization, “COVID-19 Pandemic Triggers 25% Increase in Prevalence of Anxiety and Depression Worldwide,” March 2, 2022.

[2] Harvard Health Publishing, “Coronavirus Outbreak and Kids: Advice on Playdates, Social Distancing, and Healthy Behaviors to Help Prevent Infection,” May 20, 2022.

[3] Matt Richtel, “Surgeon General Warns of Youth Mental Health Crisis,” The New York Times, Dec. 7, 2021; and Children’s Hospital Association, “Sound the Alarm for Kids Raises Awareness of National Mental Health Emergency,” Nov. 2, 2021.