The Academy of Finland and the CIHR Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health in partnership with the CIHR Institute of Gender and Health, the CIHR Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction, the Norlien Foundation, the Alberta Centre for Child, Family and Community Research, and the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research are pleased to announce the launch of an International Program on mental health and addiction in children and youth.

This research programme is coordinated by the Academy of Finland and implemented jointly by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and its partners. Through this funding opportunity, Finnish and Canadian research teams (i.e. international consortia) can apply jointly for funding for bilateral projects.

The purpose of this program is to create new knowledge that will provide new insights, explain mechanisms, evaluate preventive interventions, and improve the evidence base necessary to optimize clinical practice and policy decisions affecting mental health and addiction in children and youth and access to health services.

The CIHR-IHDCYH, CIHR-IGH, CIHR-INMHA, the Norlien Foundation, the ACCFCR, and the AHFMR will provide funding for applications that are determined to be relevant to the following research areas:

A - Early origins of mental illness

1. Preconceptional, pregnancy, and early childhood influences on neurobehavioural development and mental illness in children and youth
2. Neural mechanisms underlying the effects of the social environment on cognitive and behavioural development in children and youth
3. Epigenetic effects of social environment during brain development
4. Interactions of genes and early social environment on neurobehavioural development and mental illness in children and youth
5. Family and community risk factors (including maternal mental health, exposure to domestic violence and other adverse experiences and chronic stressors, recent immigration, and homelessness) for behavioural disorders and mental illness in children and youth
6. Early-life interventions to prevent mental illness and behavioural disorders

B - Early origins of addiction

1. Links between intrauterine exposure to alcohol (FASD), cigarette smoking, and drugs of addiction and later addictive behaviours
2. Neural mechanisms underlying the effects of the social environment on later addictive behaviours
3. Preconceptional, pregnancy, and early childhood influences on later addictive behaviours
4. The roles of genetics, epigenetics, and gene-environment interactions in the development of addictive behaviours
5. Family and community risk factors (including maternal mental health, exposure to domestic violence and other adverse experiences and chronic stressors, recent immigration, and homelessness) for later addictive behaviours
6. Early-life interventions to prevent addictive behaviours

C - Early child care environment

1. Impact of daycare and other early child care environment on behavioural development, mental illness, and addiction
2. Child, family, and community characteristics and interventions that increase or reduce the risk of subsequent mental health and addiction

D - Access to mental health, social, and educational services for children and youth with mental illness, addiction, and behaviour problems

1. Interventions to improve access to treatment and support services provided by mental health professionals, social workers, and educators
2. Interventions to reduce wait times for evaluation, referral, treatment, and support
3. Socioeconomic, language, and other barriers to access to care and services

E - Pharmacoepidemiology of psychotropic drug use in children and youth with mental illness and behavioural problems

1. Effects of changes in antidepressant use on suicide rates
2. Patterns of stimulant medication use and their associations with behaviour, school performance, and social adaptation

CIHR-IHDCYH and CIHR-INMHA will support research in any of the 5 themes outlined above.

CIHR-IGH will support any application that explicitly includes an examination of sex differences or gender influences or both.

Norlien Foundation will support research in theme B only.

ACCFCR will support research in themes C and D, and may support knowledge mobilization activities related to themes A and B.

AHFMR will support research in themes A, B, D, and E.

Please note that the deadline to send a letter of intent is January 30, 2009.

More information about this program is available on the Academy of Finland website (please click on Programme Memorandum).

Details about the application process for Canadian researchers will be available in January on the CIHR Funding Opportunities Database.

To foster Finnish-Canadian team development, CIHR-IHDCYH and the Academy of Finland will provide a list of researchers from both countries working in the area of mental health and addiction in children and youth.

For questions about this international program, please contact:

Anne-Cécile Desfaits, PhD
Assistant Director,
CIHR - Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health
The Montreal Children's Hospital
Les Tourelles, T-118
2300 Tupper Street
Montreal, Quebec
H3H 1P3
Telephone: 514-412-4414
Fax: 514-412-4253
Email: anne-cecile.desfaits@cihr-irsc.gc.ca