An international task force to create adaptive bio-psycho-social and environmental models of sleep, circadian rhythms, and youth depression and anxiety across five continents
Associated organisationsDefault Community Account · Harvard Medical School · Massachusetts General Hospital · Monash University · Murdoch Children's Research Institute · Sunway University · University of Oregon · University of Oxford · University of the Western CapeEurope PMC affiliations are not treated as award recipients or mapped locations.
Funding£3.2M
PeriodApr 2024 — Apr 2029
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
Teenagers with depression and anxiety often struggle with sleep and their body clocks, but no one has yet built a practical model that explains how biological, psychological, social, and environmental factors combine to cause these problems. This matters because sleep and circadian rhythm disturbances are not just symptoms—they actively drive the development and persistence of depression and anxiety in young people. Current prevention and treatment programmes lack a validated framework that accounts for the full range of influences, from genetics and brain chemistry to family routines, school schedules, and neighbourhood environments. Without such a framework, interventions remain fragmented and often fail to address root causes. If this international task force succeeds, it will produce open-access tools—data sets, procedures, training materials, and a global collaboration network—that researchers and clinicians can adapt for any cultural or geographic setting. The project will collect new longitudinal data in Australia, Malaysia, and South Africa, and reanalyse existing data from world-leading sleep research groups. The ultimate impact could be more effective, locally tailored prevention programmes and clinical guidelines for youth mental health, as well as better-informed public health policies that recognise sleep and circadian health as fundamental to emotional wellbeing.
View original technical description
Sleep and circadian rhythm disturbances (SCRD) play vital roles in the development and maintenance of depression and anxiety, especially during youth, a critical time for early prevention and intervention. Currently, there is no validated framework that incorporates bio-psycho-social and environmental (BPSE) factors associated with both the individual, and the contexts in which they live, to guide the development of prevention and intervention programs. We propose an internationally coordinated effort to understand BPSE factors associated with SCRD and their associations with depression and anxiety in youth, including: 1. Extensive involvement of people with lived experiences, from conception to dissemination. 2. Leveraging existing data from world-leading sleep and circadian research groups for knowledge discovery. 3. Collection of new, longitudinal data in high (Australia) and low-middle income countries (Malaysia and South Africa) to locally adapt and validate models and approaches. 4. Creation of open access frameworks (e.g., data, procedures, training materials, network of collaboration) ready for dispatch in additional geographic and cultural contexts to build research capacity and public health awareness. This proposal will lay essential groundwork to bring together previously scattered efforts from across continents and disciplines. Outcomes will be directly translatable to research, clinical and educational practice, and policy changes.
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