Background

Both Sweden and China face challenges of decreasing mental health among adolescents, although the two countries are very different in political system, income level, number of population and national culture traits. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comparative study of implementation of adolescent mental health policies in Sweden and China.

Aim

To describe and compare how adolescent mental health policies in Sweden and China are implemented. Our more specific research question was to find out how Sweden and China differ from each other regarding context, policy implementation process, content and actors in adolescent mental health.

Methods

Qualitative semi-structured interviews on policy actors from Västerås, Sweden and Weifang, China and policy document analysis were conducted.

Results

In both countries, the national level coordinates strategies and interventions on the regional and local levels. In Sweden, this is done by means of funding for intersectoral work and by establishing cooperation between several policy-actors on different levels. The Swedish policymakers on the national level gives the regional and local level actors a certain amount of freedom to organise their activities provided that actors cooperate. In China, the national coordination aims for interventions for improvement of adolescent mental health in one sector, the educational organisation, and the actions of policy actors are guided in detail to a higher degree. The content of the Swedish adolescent mental health policy documents focus on counselling adolescents, while the Chinese documents focus on knowledge dissemination.

Conclusions

The policy implementation of the two countries differs in number of actors involved, and the freedom given to regional and policy actors to perform interventions. In both countries, schools play a crucial part in policy implementation.

Key messages:

• The adolescent mental health policies in Sweden and China are compared in policy context, implementation process, content and actors based on the policy triangle framework.

• The policy systems in these two countries share similarities in several aspects and also show differences in other parts.