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In the wake of the pandemic, Simon Fraser University researcher Hasina Samji advocated for a return to communal support systems to bolster teenagers' mental health and sense of belonging within their communities.

Samji spearheaded a recent study examining the influence of adjustable societal and community-level factors on youth mental health and well-being. Drawing from her 2022 Youth Development Instrument survey, which encompassed over 8,800 Grade 11 students in British Columbia, the study delved into the impact of childhood experiences on depression, anxiety and overall life satisfaction.

During the survey conducted amid the pandemic's fifth wave, participants reported their positive and adverse childhood encounters, alongside their mental health symptoms and life satisfaction levels.

As per Medical Express, the findings showed a direct correlation between positive childhood experiences and enhanced mental well-being, with fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety observed among individuals with a greater number of positive encounters.

These positive encounters encompass supportive friendships, familial solidarity during challenges, a sense of community belonging and the security provided by protective adults in their homes.

Conversely, those with more adverse childhood experiences exhibited heightened symptoms of depression and anxiety, alongside diminished life satisfaction and mental health.

Adverse childhood experiences encompass a range of detrimental encounters, including verbal, physical, and sexual abuse, neglect-both emotional and physical-domestic violence, caregiver mental illness, incarceration, substance abuse, and divorce. Such adverse experiences extend beyond the individual level to societal factors like food insecurity and homelessness, community-level issues such as feeling unsafe at school or within the community, and family-level challenges like caregiver separation or divorce.

Adults who have encountered four or more adverse childhood experiences face a fourfold increased likelihood of experiencing depression and diminished life satisfaction, a threefold heightened risk of anxiety, and are thirty times more prone to attempting suicide compared to individuals without such adverse childhood experiences.

"We can't prevent adversity for all young people," Samji said. "We know adversity leads to so many poor outcomes across a whole host of domains, whether it's infectious diseases, or substance use, or obesity, or cardiac disease. When you look at people who have been exposed to four or more adverse childhood experiences, versus fewer or zero adverse experiences-they are at higher risk for almost every poor health outcome."

Samji noted the potential for preventive measures and early interventions to mitigate these risks.

"As a health-care system, we're often very reactive," Samji explained. "Young people tell us that we wait for them to be in crisis before we provide the supports that they need. I really wanted to go upstream and think about what kind of individual level supports, but also structural and systemic supports can we provide earlier."

Recognizing the socio-economic gradient in mental illness distribution, Samji advocates for systemic changes to bolster family and institutional supports, thereby fostering positive childhood experiences and curbing adverse encounters.

The study's expansion to cover 32 school districts in 2024 highlighted the growing recognition of the importance of addressing social determinants of mental health and promoting holistic well-being strategies, marking a pivotal step toward reshaping mental health paradigms and community support structures.

"When people think about mental health, they only think of mental illness, but mental health is so much more," Samji noted.

"Just like physical health, there is the illness aspect, but we know we can do more to support our physical health: We can work out, we can eat well. Similarly for mental health. Mental illness is not a done deal. You can delay it; you can prevent it in certain cases. There is, of course a genetic component, just like there is in physical illness."