The ADP aims to improve the speed and effectiveness of research into young people’s mental health with an unprecedented new resource for scientists and policy-makers.
Thousands of pieces of data are collected every day, whether that’s in schools, GP clinics or hospitals.
This data provides crucial insight into adolescent mental health and can help us tackle some of the major challenges young people face today.
But right now, it’s time-consuming and difficult for scientists and policy-makers to get the results they need.
The Adolescent Data Platform will anonymously bring all this data together under one roof, preparing it so it’s easy to work with to speed up the research.
In total, billions of pieces of data will be included in the platform, ranging from administrative health, social and education data, to psychological and clinical data, as well as information from research studies. All held within the privacy protecting SAIL Databank at Swansea University Medical School.
Professor Ann John and her team of world-leading data scientists from the Farr Institute will spend the first year building the infrastructure, working with other researchers, securing data agreements, preparing and linking the data.
The team will begin preliminary data analysis on available data within the first 12 months – and will be working with other researchers across the UK to grow the size of the platform, nations covered, and breadth and depth of data during that period.
This is the biggest platform of its kind, addressing a significant gap in young people’s mental health research.
It also offers the opportunity to get scientists from different fields working together, breaking down silos and building a truly bio-psycho-social model to understand mental illness.
Ultimately, it will make it easier for researchers and policy-makers worldwide to use and learn from data, reducing the costs and time involved in mental health research and creating vast new potential insights.
The Adolescent Data Platform (ADP) is a ground-breaking tool for mental health research, addressing a significant gap in young people’s mental health research.
The ADP enables scientists from any country or discipline to access and understand large volumes of organised data in real-world settings. The ADP brings together previously isolated information on adolescents from medical services, schools, NGOs, and the criminal justice system.
The platform means that researchers from disciplines as varied as social sciences and genetics are able to work together, accessing and analysing large volumes of data in ways which were previously not possible. It also means the voices of those who would normally not participate in research due to their profile or conditions can be heard.
The ADP dramatically increases the cost-effectiveness of mental health research and, more importantly, the likelihood of more quickly achieving meaningful results to improve people’s lives. The ADP is currently being used by multiple organisations as a basis for research worth £10 million.
Prof. Ann John and her team have been analysing the data, presenting their findings to mental health services, policy makers, practitioners, and young people. This work is paving the way for vital improvements in how we identify, support, treat and empower young people and marginalised communities facing mental health issues. Examples include:
Depression
The team found high prescription rates of adult anti-depressants for adolescents. As a result, guidance was issued in Wales on the most appropriate anti-depressive to prescribe for young people. Follow up shows a marked change in the use of the adult anti-depressants to treat conditions in young people.
Self-harm
The team identified issues such as lower referral rates for boys. Through workshops with teachers, psychologists, psychiatrists and other practitioners and young people, they were able to understand drivers and concerns, and developed government-sponsored guidelines. These were issued to all schools in Wales, supporting teachers and practitioners on how to identify and better provide support to these young people.
Cyberbullying, self-harm and suicidality
The team were able to show a link between cyberbullying, self-harm, and suicidality (the risk or likelihood of suicide/suicidal thoughts) – not just for the victims but also for the perpetrators. This led to a change in how both are seen: as people who need help, and in the way the problem is managed. The significance of this work has been recognised by the WHO.
Childhood maltreatment
The team identified the mental health support needed for families at risk of having infants taken into care, reducing stigma and identifying a way to reduce a significant precursor to mental health issues among these children in later life.
Scientific papers published
The ADP is helping to improve prevention, detection and early intervention for depression in young people.
By changing the narrative from “people with problems” to “people whose needs we can address”, ADP is changing attitudes and addressing stigma by allowing young and marginalised people’s needs to be seen, for mental health and beyond. This is transformative in reducing stigma and preventing the development of mental health issues in young people.
Ann John trained as a GP before going into research full-time, she is now a professor at Swansea University Medical School. Her main areas of interest are the epidemiology and prevention of common mental disorders, suicide and self harm.
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