Introduction and aims
Mental health problems like anxiety and depression are increasingly common among young people. Preventing anxiety and depression would benefit many young people, reducing distress and decreasing pressure on NHS services. However, current prevention approaches (often based on psychological therapy) do not work for everyone.
Community leisure activities could provide a more accessible and less stigmatising approach. These are activities done for fun in the community (e.g. music, arts, sports, volunteering, heritage). These activities can improve symptoms for young people already experiencing anxiety and depression. In older adults, they can also prevent mental health problems. But it is not clear whether they could prevent youth anxiety and depression.
Understanding this is particularly challenging because access to community activities is unequal across society. There are inequalities according to people’s ethnicity, socioeconomic position, and where they live, among other factors. So, whether these activities can prevent mental health problems remains unclear. If they are beneficial, then we also need to identify ways of increasing access, so that we can use these activities to prevent anxiety and depression universally.
The CLASP project therefore aims to explore whether and how involvement in community activities can prevent young people from experiencing anxiety and depression. It is being funded by a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Advanced Fellowship awarded to Dr Jess Bone.
Research methods
The project will take place over 5 years and will use several types of existing data collected from young people across the UK. It will determine whether community activities could be used to prevent youth anxiety and depression through three packages of work:
- Using data from studies of thousands of young people in the UK, followed between the ages of 10 and 25, we will test whether doing community activities can prevent anxiety and depression by looking at the number of new disorders reported and changes in symptom levels. We will plan analyses with young people and community organisations, accounting for factors that might influence engagement in activities and mental health.
- We will use theoretical models and young people’s and other stakeholder’s experiences to identify population groups who may struggle to access community activities. We will then test two questions: a) do these groups have lower rates of engagement and b) can community activities still prevent anxiety and depression in these groups? This aims to show whether community activities could prevent mental health problems universally, despite existing inequalities.
- Finally, we will test three potential ways to reduce inequalities in access to community activities, exploring whether they can prevent anxiety and depression. We will combine data from policy changes, large studies, and electronic health records to test three different routes to making community activities fairer: through community funding, schools, and clinical referrals.
Outcomes
This proposal has been developed with young people and community organisations, who described the potential benefits of community activities, but were concerned about inequalities, and identified potential routes to increase access. Throughout the project, we will collaborate with young people and community organisations, parents, teachers, and link workers.
The findings will show whether community activities can prevent anxiety and depression for all young people and identify ways to increase access. We will use the findings to develop an effective, acceptable, non-stigmatising, and cost-saving strategy to prevent youth anxiety and depression together with young people, community organisations, parents, teachers, and clinicians. We also aim to improve current practice within community organisations and social prescribing.
Young people’s advisory group
We are delighted to be working with a group of young people aged 16 – 25 years old for this project. The advisory group will meet ten times over the five-year project, roughly twice a year, online and in person. During these meetings young people will be involved in:
- Identifying which community activities should be studied in the project
- Thinking about the factors that influence whether young people can access community activities and how these are linked to their mental health
- Co-designing the analyses with researchers
- Interpreting the research findings and considering implications for young people
- Helping to resolve any challenges that come up in the project
- Co-producing ways to share the findings, such as co-writing summaries, blogs and presentations
In 2027 – 2029 there will also be the opportunity for three 18 – 25-year-olds to take part in paid eight-week summer placements. During this placement, these young people will lead on the project dissemination (i.e sharing findings) and gain experience in research methods, data analysis and, if it is of interest, will be able to attend training courses. These placements will be advertised here, on the McPin website, and via our newsletter when available. Please do not contact us before they are advertised, as unfortunately we do not have capacity to offer any positions until then.