Research on Child and Adolescent Mental Health

caregiver expectations), quality of care (e.g.,
whether or not children receive medication),
referral bias or access to appropriate care (e.g.,
referral to school services or specialty care settings
vs. justice or welfare systems for similar
problems), the diagnostic process (e.g., lack of
culturally competent providers), and hence
subsequent care and poorer health outcomes.
Similarly, children whose parents are in chronic
poverty or who have experienced severe economic
losses are at a greater risk for anxiety, depression,
and antisocial behaviors (McLeod & Shanahan,
1996; Samaan, 2000).
RESOURCES
Many treatments and services children and their
families receive have not been examined or
evaluated. A significant proportion of the mental
health dollar for children continues to go to
treatments and services that have been shown to
be largely ineffective or have not been shown to
be effective. The question of how to redirect costly
residential, hospital, and outpatient (when not
evidence-based) resources into more effective care
is both a research and a policy issue. The
challenge of implementing science-based
treatments and services rests not only on good
dissemination but also on the realignment of
resources to ensure that children and families in
need receive the most appropriate care in a timely
manner. This requires the research community to
partner with families, providers, and other mental
health stakeholders and policymakers to realign
current resources to ensure that the science base
on treatments and services is usable,
implementable, disseminated, and sustained in
the communities where children live.
RESEARCH GAPS
It is significant to note that the evidence base on
Evidence-based Treatments
In the field of children’s mental health science
and service deliver, the term evidence-based
refers to a body of knowledge, obtained through
carefully implemented scientific methods, about
the prevalence, incidence, or risk for mental
disordres or about the impact of treatments or
services on mental health problems.
It is a shorthand term denoting the quality,
robutsness, and validity of the scientific
evidence that can be brought to bear on
questions of etiology, distribution, or risk for
disorders or on outcomes of care for children
with mental health problems.
the effectiveness of preventive programs
and treatments for specifiable disorders and
services is growing but uneven. Although there is
strong evidence for the treatment of many
disorders, for others, particularly eating disorders,
PTSD, autism and co-occurring conditions, the
evidence is minimal. Despite the existence of a
growing body of interventions for children, when
questions arise as to the extent to which such
interventions will match the unique
configurations of particular communities,
populations, or real-world clinical practices, the
limits of the evidence base become apparent.
Meta-analytic work has revealed that the effects
of psychosocial treatments are as strong for
children as they are for adults (Weisz & Weiss,
1993; Weisz, Weiss, Alicke, & Klotz, 1987; Weisz,
Weiss, Han, Granger, & Morton, 1995), yet the
vast majority of studies on the effectiveness of
psychosocial treatments have been conducted in
controlled laboratory settings, rather than in the
crucible of real-world practices (Weisz, Donenberg,
Han & Weiss, 1995; Weisz, Weiss, & Donenberg,
1992). Consequently, the extent to which these
22