Mental health disorders are prevalent among youth and adolescents in low- and middle-income countries, and access to evidence-based treatments is poor. Although there is a great need for high-quality research to serve young people in low- and middle-income countries, there is limited guidance available for researchers who wish to conduct such work. Here, we describe our process of conducting school-based youth mental health work in Kenya over the last several years. We focus on five key lessons we learned that could guide future global mental health work with youth: (a) reducing stigma with strengths-focused interventions, (b) expanding access by working in schools, (c) generating buy-in from local stakeholders, (d) adapting the intervention via multicultural collaboration, and (e) applying insights from low- and middle-income countries to serve young people in high-income countries. We conclude by discussing how these lessons, and those shared by other teams, can be applied to help reduce the treatment gap for young people around the world.

中文翻译：

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开展全球心理健康研究：肯尼亚的经验教训

精神健康障碍在低收入和中等收入国家的青年和青少年中普遍存在，获得循证治疗的机会很少。尽管非常需要高质量的研究来服务于中低收入国家的年轻人，但对于希望开展此类工作的研究人员来说，可用的指导有限。在这里，我们描述了过去几年我们在肯尼亚开展以学校为基础的青少年心理健康工作的过程。我们专注于我们学到的五个关键经验教训，这些经验教训可以指导未来的全球青年精神卫生工作：(a) 通过以优势为重点的干预措施减少污名，(b) 通过在学校工作来扩大机会，(c) 获得当地利益相关者的支持(d) 通过多元文化合作调整干预措施，(e) 运用低收入和中等收入国家的见解为高收入国家的年轻人服务。最后，我们讨论了如何将这些经验教训以及其他团队分享的经验教训应用于帮助缩小世界各地年轻人的治疗差距。