I know children and adolescents to be incredibly resilient, as a mother of three and in my work with Unicef. But their mental health has seriously suffered from the grief, uncertainty, isolation and stress over the past years of Covid-19 and well before that. As recent tragic cases of youth suicide in Thailand show, without early detection and access to services and support, they are in fact very vulnerable.
For 10-19 year olds in Thailand, a worrying 15% of the burden of disease (or the impact of living with a health problem) is attributable to mental disorders and self-harm, based on Global Burden of Disease's modelled estimates revealed in a new report by Unicef, the Ministry of Public Health, the Institute for Population and Social Research and Burnet Institute. Even more worrying is that the data fails to capture the true extent of all psychosocial distress felt by the 14 million children and adolescents across the country and its serious harm to their lifelong health, as mental disorders are common yet undertreated due to stigma and lack of access to screenings and support. Many millions may not meet the diagnostic criteria for a disorder, but their suffering is just as real.
