This project will investigate whether community engagement is a modifiable health behaviour that can prevent and reduce youth anxiety and depression. Although community engagement (e.g., arts, culture, heritage, volunteering, community groups) is associated with reduced anxiety and depression, previous research is limited by not accounting for inequalities in mental health and community engagement, reliance on small studies with short follow-ups, and little evidence specifically in young people.

We will establish whether community engagement can reduce youth anxiety and depression, assess its equality of distribution internationally, and test whether individual- and society-level community engagement interventions can reduce youth anxiety and depression. We will use population-level longitudinal data from the UK, US, Australia, Japan, Egypt, and Norway. We will triangulate evidence from novel statistical methods for causal inference. These approaches have not yet been used in this field but are vital to examine associations independent of inequalities in mental health and community engagement. Cutting-edge cross-country evidence will demonstrate whether community engagement could be a public health intervention that reduces anxiety and depression. This project will facilitate further innovative research, inform population health policy and funding, and support development of large-scale interventions to reduce youth anxiety and depression globally.