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According to the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2024, 1 in 7 adolescents (10-19 years old) worldwide experience some sort of mental disorder, including depression, anxiety, and behavioral disorders. When looking at data from the Philippines, adolescents here also suffer these same mental issues. According to a study published by Cambridge University Press in 2021, 20.9% of Filipino adolescents (15-24 years old) experience moderate to severe depressive symptoms. That's over double the number measured in 2013.
One of the vulnerable groups that was mentioned to be vulnerable to these symptoms is LGBTQ+ youths. The data shows that 32.3% queer adolescents exhibited these depressive symptoms, compared to only 19.8% of their cisgender and heteronormative peers exhibiting them. When looking at the problem on a global scale, the problem is much more pronounced, especially with some countries being much less accepting of LGBTQ+ people compared to the Philippines. According to Di Giacomo et al. (2018), LGBTQ+ youth were 3.5 times more likely to attempt suicide when compared to heterosexual youth, and trans teens were 5.87 times more likely than the average among all teens.
In the Philippines, there have been measures taken to help tackle the youth mental health crisis. For example, legislation like Republic Act 12080 or the "Basic Education Mental Health and Well-Being Promotion Act," and government officials in support of more mental care help to combat the issue at an institutional level. There also exist multiple advocacy groups and campaigns that seek to promote mental well-being, both for youth and LGBTQ+ youth, like MentalHealthPH, Project INDAY, the Psychological Association of the Philippines, and more.
Our website serves as an informational hub for all things youth and LGBTQ+ youth mental health. It'll serve as an easy place to access relevant sources, news, and information about mental wellness. With our website, we want to be able to easily get these resources to the people who need them to spread awareness about these issues so that more work can be done to help the adolescents suffering from them.
Our group is currently lacking in numbers! To help us in our mission to spread awareness about mental health and make resources about it more accessible, you can volunteer and/or join the group through the "Get Involved" page in the navigation bar.