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The objective of this paper was to examine the school-related experiences of youth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants represented both clinical and community youth aged 14 to 28 who were sampled as part of a larger study. Feedback from youth attending school during the pandemic was qualitatively examined and youth who planned to attend school prior to the pandemic and did (n = 246) and youth who planned to attend but did not (n = 28) were compared quantitatively. Youth appreciated the flexibility of online learning and some also reported experiencing a lack of support from their school and the need for instructor training on how to deliver virtual classes effectively. Future studies should examine what factors influence student engagement with virtual learning, what strategies could improve supports for student in their long-term career development, and the longitudinal experiences of youth who may have chosen not to go back to school due to the pandemic. This survey was conducted in Ontario, Canada. A more diverse sample collected outside of Ontario would improve generalizability. Qualitative data were based on survey responses and not interviews. Thus we were unable to discern the reasons youth decided to attend school, or not, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective: Integrated youth services (IYS) are an emerging model of care offering a broad range of mental health and social services for youth in one location. This study aimed to determine the IYS service characteristics most important to youth, as well as to determine whether different classes of youth have different service preferences, and if so, what defines these classes. Methods: Ontario youth aged 14–29 years with mental health challenges were recruited to participate in a discrete choice experiment (DCE) survey. The DCE contained 12 attributes, each represented by 4 levels representing core characteristics of IYS models. To supplement the DCE questions, demographic information was collected and a mental health screener was administered. Preferences were examined, latent class analyses were conducted, and latent classes were compared. Results: As a whole, participants endorsed the IYS model of service delivery. Among 274 youth, there were three latent classes: 1) the Focused Service (37.6%) latent class prioritized efficient delivery of mental health services. 2) The Holistic Services (30.3%) latent class prioritized a diverse array of mental health and social services delivered in a timely fashion. 3) The Responsive Services (32.1%) latent class prioritized services that matched the individual needs of the youth being served. Differences between classes were observed based on sociodemographic and clinical variables. Conclusions: IYS is an acceptable model of care, in that it prioritizes components that reflect youth preferences. The differences in preference profiles of different groups of youth point to the need for flexible models of service delivery. Service design initiatives should take these preferences into account, designing services that meet the needs and preferences of a broad range of youth. Working locally to co-design services with the youth in the target population who wish to be engaged will help meet the needs of youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Establishing preclinical models of Alzheimer's disease that predict clinical outcomes remains a critically important, yet to date not fully realized, goal. Models derived from human cells offer considerable advantages over non-human models, including the potential to reflect some of the inter-individual differences that are apparent in patients. Here we report an approach using induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cortical neurons from people with early symptomatic Alzheimer's disease where we sought a match between individual disease characteristics in the cells with analogous characteristics in the people from whom they were derived. We show that the response to amyloid-β burden in life, as measured by cognitive decline and brain activity levels, varies between individuals and this vulnerability rating correlates with the individual cellular vulnerability to extrinsic amyloid-β in vitro as measured by synapse loss and function. Our findings indicate that patient-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cortical neurons not only present key aspects of Alzheimer's disease pathology but also reflect key aspects of the clinical phenotypes of the same patients. Cellular models that reflect an individual's in-life clinical vulnerability thus represent a tractable method of Alzheimer's disease modelling using clinical data in combination with cellular phenotypes., (© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain.)