The Aspen Health Strategy Group examines the growing burden of youth mental health challenges and calls on the health sector to lead the design of comprehensive solutions.
Contact: Eric Baker
Media Relations Manager
[email protected]
Aspen Institute
Washington, DC, April 30, 2025
— A new report released by the nonpartisan Aspen Health Strategy Group (AHSG), an initiative of the Health, Medicine & Society Program of the Aspen Institute, examines the urgent need to address youth mental health challenges and identifies opportunities for health sector leaders to take action. “Addressing the Child & Adolescent Mental Health Crisis” is the product of a year-long, in-depth study and reflects the consensus of 20 senior leaders in the public and private sectors.
“The increasing levels of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts among our young people must be a call to action,” says AHSG co-chair Kathleen Sebelius, former US Secretary of Health and Human Services and former Governor of Kansas. “We must make a broad-based societal commitment to identify and implement evidence-based solutions.”
The report can be read online; a list of AHSG participants is linked below.
“Five Big Ideas” are identified in the report:
- Prioritize prevention with measures to reduce the incidence of poor mental health, identify people at risk, and deliver services before conditions worsen.
- Improve access to care by redesigning the youth mental health care delivery system and developing payment and licensing policies that support that redesign.
- Improve the caliber of mental health care services by examining existing quality measures, developing new ones as needed, and adopting those measures in payment and licensing policies.
- Support local institutions, especially schools, building on the recognition that strong mental health has its roots in the community. Working together, families, schools, and religious and voluntary organizations can all contribute to the range of preventive and treatment services youths need.
- Embrace the potential of technology, such as by broadening the use of telehealth, streamlining regulations for licensing technology-based interventions, expanding randomized controlled trials of digital therapeutics, and developing strategies to ensure the optimal use of social media.
“The good news is that there are preventive and treatment approaches that work to address the mental health crisis among our youth,” says William Frist, also co-chair of the AHSG, and formerly US Senator from Tennessee and Senate majority leader. “The health sector has a pivotal leadership role to play to put them into policy and practice.”
The report highlights an alarming epidemic. In 2022, one in five adolescents had a major depressive episode, and one in eight reported serious thoughts of suicide. Yet more than 40 percent of adolescents with a major depressive episode in the past year received no mental health treatment at all.
The report calls for strong, mutually beneficial collaborative partnerships across science, practice, and policy, engaging policymakers, healthcare administrators, educators, clinicians, advocates, community leaders, and patients. “If science-backed strategies are deployed with respect for the foundational humanistic ideals of equity, compassion, and respect, we have enormous potential to reduce suffering and improve quality of life,” concludes the report.
This report contributes to the Aspen Institute’s ongoing work in support of young people’s development and leadership, a key pillar of the organization’s broader strategic plan.
A list of the Aspen Health Strategy Group members can be found here.
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The mission of the Aspen Health Strategy Group is to promote improvements in policy and practice by providing leadership on important and complex health issues. AHSG brings together senior leaders representing a mix of influential sectors, including health, business, philanthropy, and technology, and is an initiative of the Health, Medicine & Society Program at the Aspen Institute.
The Health, Medicine & Society Program of the Aspen Institute brings together influential groups of thought leaders, decisionmakers, and the informed public to consider 21st-century health challenges in the US and around the world and to identify practical solutions for addressing them. The rigorously nonpartisan work spans a range of timely topics. At the heart of most of its activities is a package of research, convenings, and publications that supports policymakers, scholars, advocates, and other stakeholders in their commitment to better health for all.
The Aspen Institute is a global nonprofit organization whose purpose is to ignite human potential to build understanding and create new possibilities for a better world. Founded in 1949, the Institute drives change through dialogue, leadership, and action to help solve society’s greatest challenges. It is headquartered in Washington, DC and has a campus in Aspen, Colorado, as well as an international network of partners. For more information, visit www.aspeninstitute.org.