Youth Substance Use and Co-occurring Mental Health Concerns

Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH)

DOI: 10.13056/acamh.20553
For this podcast, we are joined by Dr. Jillian Halladay, registered nurse, clinical epidemiologist, and winner of ACAMH’s Research Trainee of the Year Award 2021.
Jillian begins by commenting on what it meant to her to have received the ACAMH Research Trainee of the Year Award in 2021, before providing us with an insight into her research examining the co-occurrence of substance use in youth in general and in acute clinical settings.
As principal investigator with the CAMP study, which sought to determine the feasibility of administering a standardized mental health and substance use assessment amongst youth admitted to the inpatient psychiatric unit, Jillian tells us more about the study, its findings, and whether she envisions the standardisation being rolled out.
Having published several papers on student mental health and substance use, Jillian also discusses the importance of schools and teachers on youth mental health and substance use, plus provides insight into what types of schools had high co-occurrence of mental health and drug use based on her research.
Jillian then comments on her involvement in the development, implementation, and evaluation of a mental health literacy program for post-secondary staff, faculty, and graduate teaching assistants called Professor Hippo-on-Campus, plus discusses other recent research projects that she has been involved in.
Furthermore, with Jillian’s clinical and research roles being grounded in identifying, contributing to, and utilizing the best available evidence to improve the lives of youth, Jillian discusses how to go about translating evidence-based research into practice to really make a difference to young people.