The health issue ‘Pressure in daily life among young people and young adults’ has two ambitions:

  • By 2024, we will have knowledge about the nature, extent and determinants of mental health among young people.
  • By 2024, young people and young adults will experience less performance pressure in their lives because mental health skills are encouraged and the physical and social living environment promote mental health.

The Public Health Foresight Study 2018 described that mental pressure on young people appears to be increasing, partly due to performance pressure in education and society. This leads, for example, to increased substance use to improve performance, but also to more psychological complaints and burnout. In response, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) investigated this issue further. The results (published in May 2019), however, did not yet provide any conclusions about these problems or possible solutions.

That is why the national government has now formulated two objectives under the first ambition:

  • The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) has instructed RIVM, on behalf of the cabinet, to encourage all research institutions involved to use the same concepts and definitions in ongoing and future research.
  • The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) has instructed RIVM, on behalf of the cabinet, to conduct large-scale quantitative research into psychological problems among students in higher and university education.

Many parties are often involved in the question of how young people and young adults deal with performance pressure, such as municipalities, municipal health services, schools and support workers. They do not always manage to find one another yet. Mental resilience programmes have not yet been implemented structurally at schools everywhere, and many municipalities lack policy, coordination and good cooperation in this area. Because organisations do not know one another or do not know how to find one another, the urgency is not always recognised. As a result, problems are not always identified and addressed. That is why the national government will take the following nationwide measures to support the second ambition:

  • Through the Trimbos Institute, the cabinet is investing in knowledge sharing about health literacy through Mentaal Vitaal and in promoting the theme of wellbeing through the Healthy School project.
  • Addressing mental pressure is not only about strengthening individual resilience, but also about creating a social environment and (system) conditions that promote mental health. The Ministries of OCW and VWS will examine how they can reinforce each other’s policies aimed at reducing mental pressure among young people and young adults.

Click here for the National Health Policy Memorandum 2020–2024. Click here for the letter to the House of Representatives accompanying its presentation.