The Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council of the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering  published a report recommending that the federal government should make preventing mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders and promoting mental health in young people a national priority.

There is a chapter of the report that addresses mental health screening as a means of prevention of mental, emotional and behavioral disorders in youth. The top-line recommendations are:

• Identification of risk must be tied to effective intervention.

• Primary care settings, schools and communities are important settings for screening.

• Validated screening tools should be used; sensitivity to culture is highlighted.

• Guidelines must be agreed to for referrals; screening must avoid labeling.

• Targeting high risk youth (foster care, juvenile justice, youth with depressed parents) is good public health practice.

• A national research plan on prevention of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders in youth should be developed and funded to learn how to implement evidence-based screening and prevention in real world community settings.

Read the TeenScreen National Center’s press release about this report.

Access materials from a Webinar hosted by the TeenScreen National Center about the IOM/NRC report.

Read the IOM/NRC report online.