We know young people in Australia and worldwide are experiencing growing mental health challenges.

The most recent national survey from the Australian Bureau of Statistics found nearly two in five (38.8%) 16- to 24-year-olds experienced symptoms of a mental disorder in the previous 12 months.

This was substantially higher than the last time the survey was run in 2007, when the figure was 26%.

We’ve published a new study today looking at the rates of mental health problems among Australian high school students specifically. We found almost one in four high school students report mental health problems by Year 10 – and things are worse for girls and gender-diverse teens.

In our study, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, we looked at mental health symptoms in more than 6,500 Australian teens, and how these symptoms changed over time.

We surveyed high school students from 71 schools annually from Year 7 (age 12/13) to Year 10 (age 15/16). Our sample, while not nationally representative, includes a large cross-section of schools in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.

We found symptoms of mental health problems increased steadily over time:

We looked at how mental health symptoms over time were linked to different........

© The Conversation