Progressing participatory research with young people in India: how a youth advisory board supported a large mental health project in Bengaluru

TL;DR

The paper shows how involving Indian youth in a mental health project through a Youth Advisory Board improved the project's cultural relevance and effectiveness.

Contribution

The study provides practical guidance and six recommendations for implementing Youth Advisory Boards in Indian mental health research.

Findings

Youth Advisory Boards are feasible in India despite mental health stigma.

Young people contributed meaningfully to refining interventions and research tools.

Culturally appropriate strategies improved youth engagement and project outcomes.

Abstract

Action is needed to advance youth mental health research in India, and young people could significantly contribute to this. However, youth involvement in Indian research is rare, largely due to cultural norms around how research is done and the place of young people in society. There are calls for guidance on how youth involvement could be accelerated in India in ways that respect cultural norms. Youth Advisory Boards (YABs) are one means of doing this, but resources are needed to support their practical implementation in India. Our paper aims to promote the practice of YABs by detailing our experiences, challenges and solutions around hosting a YAB as part of a large mental health project based in Bengaluru, India.

We hosted a YAB (n = 17 members) over three years in Project SAMA (Safeguarding Adolescent Mental Health in India). SAMA was a co-production and feasibility study of a whole-school program to address youth anxiety and depression. We viewed youth perspectives and lived experience as valuable forms of knowledge, and our ambition was for the YAB to enhance the relevance, cultural sensitivity, and effectiveness of our research. A systematic approach was adopted for the recruitment, engagement, and capacity building of YAB members. The team strived to support meaningful engagement and participatory decision-making. The YAB contributed significantly to refining our intervention, improving research tools, and contextualising findings. We identified key challenges and enablers in implementing the YAB in India.

Despite the stigma attached to mental health in India, our study shows that YABs are a feasible platform to support the involvement of young people in mental health research there. Based on our learning, we set out six recommendations to support YABs in Indian mental health research. These recommendations encourage research teams to: identify diversity and representation goals for YAB constitution; delineate the opportunities and boundaries of youth influence on project delivery; allocate sufficient resources to YAB recruitment, training, activities and communication; consider how young people’s learning and accessibility needs and preferences can be ethically surfaced; and plan the monitoring and recording of the YAB’s influence as well as the delivery and evaluation of reciprocal benefits to young people directly.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40900-025-00781-5.

In many low-and-middle-income countries, including India, the involvement of young people in research has not been taken seriously. There remains a significant gap in engaging youth in meaningful ways in research about them and for them. Guidance is needed to help involve young people more. This paper documents the process of hosting a Youth Advisory Board (YAB) in India as part of a large school mental health project. We report how we used culturally appropriate strategies for recruiting, training and supporting the YAB to support participatory decision-making, regular consultations, and active involvement of youth members. The YAB members played a key role in improving intervention strategies, refining research tools, and contextualizing study findings. Their involvement also strengthened the cultural relevance of the research and improved communication strategies for adolescent mental health initiatives. Through this process, we identified key challenges and enabling factors for implementing YABs in India. This study provides valuable insights into best practices and challenges related to engaging youth in research in India, offering guidance for future initiatives aimed at meaningful youth participation.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40900-025-00781-5.

• Adolescent mental health in India is of concern. Investment and innovation in research is needed, shaped by youth involvement and influence.

• Youth PPIE in mental health research is rare in India due to social, institutional and practical barriers. Resources are needed which will progress youth voice in research about them and for them.

• We report our experiences and lessons learned in hosting a Youth Advisory Board as part of a large mental health project in Bengaluru, India, delivered over three years.

• We show that Indian young people are motivated to take part in PPIE in mental health research and are able to add value to research design, delivery and impact. They report personal enjoyment and benefit from participation.

• Youth Advisory Boards are a viable form of PPIE in Indian mental health research and can be very successful with sufficient time, resources, expertise and research team openness.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40900-025-00781-5.