A new study titled “Physical illnesses, mental or neurodevelopmental disorders, and multimorbidity in children: results from the Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth” provides the most up‑to‑date national snapshot of how often physical and mental health conditions overlap in Canadian children and youth. Lead authors Alex Luther and Danielle Fearon—both of whom completed postdoctoral training in the ARCH Lab— collaborated with colleagues from the University of Waterloo, Western University, the University of Ottawa, and McMaster University on this project.
Using data from over 33,000 children aged 5 to 17, the study found that about half of children (49.5%) had a long-term physical health condition, such as asthma, allergies, diabetes, epilepsy, overweight/obesity, or chronic headaches. At the same time, 17.9% had a mental or neurodevelopmental disorder such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, learning disorders, or autism.
Importantly, 1 in 10 children (9.8%) experienced both, a combination known as multimorbidity. Children with any physical illness were substantially more likely to also have a mental or neurodevelopmental disorder (19.9%) compared to those without a physical illness (14.1%). Although this pattern held across all physical illnesses, epilepsy stood out, with nearly half (49.6%) of children with epilepsy also having a mental or neurodevelopmental disorder.
The authors emphasize the need for routine mental health screening for children with physical illnesses and call for integrated models of care that address both physical and mental health together. Because the data were collected just before the COVID‑19 pandemic, the results also serve as an important baseline for tracking changes in child health moving forward.
