Researching Adolescent and Child Heath (REACH)

The comorbidity of chronic health conditions and mental disorder in children can adversely impact children’s quality of life and family functioning. It also presents complex treatment challenges and increased costs to our health care system.

The primary goal of the REACH study are to assess the course (prognosis and risk) of mental comorbidity in children newly diagnosed with asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, food allergy, and juvenile arthritis. This initial pilot study will address important feasibility questions concerning sampling, measurement, and data collection procedures which will be used to implement the full study.

This research will identify factors that condition risk for mental comorbidity which could elevate the well-being of children via improvements in health service delivery, particularly in the realm of family-centred care and targeted interventions for at-risk children.

This study is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.