Youth Mental Health Evidence Synthesis Hub (Y-MHESH)

The Youth Mental Health Evidence Synthesis Hub (Y-MHESH) is a collaboration between the Universities of York (UK) and Auckland (NZ) and brings together research evidence to answer questions about mental health that are important to young people. 

Evidence synthesis helps us understand what is known, and what is not known from research so that people can make well-informed decisions. Based in the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination in York, Y-MHESH works in partnership with children and young people to co-design and co-produce meaningful evidence syntheses that have genuine impact on mental health decision-making with, and for, children and young people.

We don’t just repeat what has already been done! We take an inclusive approach, making sure we involve those who are unrepresented in mental health research, and working with the a wide mix of people who are actually affected by, or because of, mental health problems.

This means we don’t necessarily always do the reviews that researchers and clinicians think are interesting or important. Instead we work with young people themselves to understand what questions are important to help think about how these questions can be answered with existing evidence.

So, we might not just look at whether some treatments for mental health problems work better than others; instead we might question how we know what has worked and why, and whether the effects are the same for everyone, or whether some people might do well while others do not, as well as why this might be.

With our partners, we think carefully about how these questions might be best answered and, if they can’t, what new research might need to be done, and we work hard to get this information to the people that need it.