Skepticism and excitement when co-designing just-in-time mental health apps with minoritized youth

Mental health issues among young people have surged post-COVID-19. Mental health apps can offer accessible preventive support on a large scale, yet the perspective of minoritized youth-such as those from low socioeconomic and ethnic/racial backgrounds-are underexplored. This risks low uptake and effectiveness, and exacerbating health inequities. This study aimed to understand the needs and concerns of minoritized youth in the Netherlands using a participatory approach.

We conducted 3 co-creation sessions with 17 adolescents (16 females, majority Dutch Moroccan background) aged 11-22 years, recruited through community centers in lower-income neighborhoods in The Netherlands, with the help of community workers. We also organized a discussion session with 26 preventive youth workers to explore their perspectives regarding implementation. A subset of youth (n = 10) analyzed the data in 2 co-thematic analysis workshops. We compared youth and researcher themes.

Youth saw data-driven mental health apps as useful for short-term stress relief through motivational quotes, social activity suggestions, and homework support, but unable to solve more severe issues. In the co-analysis, youth analyzed based on emotion and functions, whereas researchers employed a more technical lens. Key themes included identity-based (such as religion, gender, and age) and contextual tailoring (to school/home schedules), compassionate communication as opposed to fake support (robots), safety, and the role of social media.

These findings highlight the need to examine how app design for young people can prioritize authentic, compassionate communication, safety-including transparency about data-tailoring to identify aspects, adapting the timing and frequency of notifications, and integrating social connections and social media. Participatory approaches are promising to better understand the needs of youth from minoritized backgrounds for digital mental health technologies, with the aim of equitable digital solutions.