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Aim: To examine mental health in conjunction with physical health during the COVID‐19 pandemic among youth with physical health conditions compared to those without. Methods: A cross‐sectional survey of 622 youth aged 14 to 28 was conducted. Analyses were conducted to understand the changes in mental and physical health among youth in four groups: (a) participants with a friend or family member diagnosed with COVID‐19, (b) participants with symptoms associated with COVID‐19, (c) participants with atopic conditions (asthma and allergies), and (d) participants with other preexisting physical health conditions. Results: Many participants with physical health concerns met screening criteria for an internalizing disorder, which was significantly higher than the rate found among participants without physical health conditions. Significantly greater declines in self‐reported mental health were observed during the COVID‐19 period compared to 3 months earlier among youth reporting physical health concerns compared to those without physical health concerns. Substance use does not appear to have been affected. Conclusions: Mental health concerns are highly prevalent among youth with physical health concerns, and also appear to be exacerbated by the COVID‐19 pandemic. Physical health concerns appear to constitute risk factors for heightened mental health responses to the pandemic situation. System planners striving to adapt mental health services to meet social/physical distancing recommendations are urged to consider youth with physical health conditions and ensure that adequate integrated mental health and physical health supports are available to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The issue of youth who are not engaged in education, employment or training has been a focus of policymakers for decades. Although interventions exist for these youth, they often measure success in ways that fail to capture what youth seek to gain. The project aims to address this gap by assessing youth‐oriented outcomes for interventions targeting upcoming youth. Acknowledging the stigma attached to the deficit‐based notion of not engaged in education, employment or training, hereafter we refer to 'upcoming youth', a term coined by youth partners on the project. This study asks what youth want to achieve by participating in an intervention for upcoming youth, with a view to guiding service and research design. Methods: A mixed‐methods discrete choice experiment will be conducted with youth engaged as partners. A qualitative (focus group) stage will be conducted to design discrete‐choice experiment attributes and levels. The experiment will be piloted and administered online to approx. 500 youth (aged 14‐29) across Canada to identify the outcomes that youth prioritize for interventions. Latent class analyses will then be conducted to explore clusters of outcomes that different groups of youth prioritize. Conclusions: From a strengths‐based recovery‐oriented framework, hearing the voices of the target population is important in designing and evaluating services. This youth‐oriented research project will identify the intervention outcomes that are the highest priority for upcoming youth. Findings will inform the development, implementation and testing of interventions targeting relevant outcomes for youth who are not engaged in education, employment or training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]