原声播报87：疫情催生儿童心理健康隐患，专家呼吁注重预防性干预

Action Urged to Help Children With Growing Rates of Depression Amid Pandemic
疫情催生儿童心理健康隐患，专家呼吁注重预防性干预

【文中生词】
adolescent 青少年
respondent 调查对象
pinpoint 查明
cognitive 认知的
resilience 适应力


【词汇延展】
anxiety disorder 焦虑症
bipolar disorder 躁郁症
bulimia nervosa 暴食症
avoidant attachment style 回避型依恋
bipolar affective disorder 双向情感障碍
PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) 创伤后精神紧张性精神障碍


【单词详解】
on end
1) 连续地
continuing without stopping for a specified period of time.

例句
He is a wonderful companion and we can talk for hours on end.
他是个极好的伙伴，我们可以连续谈上几个小时。

2) 竖着
in an upright position

例句
Wet books should be placed on end with their pages kept apart.
弄湿的书应该竖着放置，书页分开。


stigma
n. 耻辱；烙印
a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person

stigmatic adj. 有烙印的；丑恶的
stigmatize v. 使…蒙上污名

例句
The stigma of mental illness remains heavy.
人们对心理疾病抱有巨大的羞耻感。

Among these, Chinese gardens were also deeply marked by the stigma of all times.
这期间，中国的园林也被深深地打上了各种时代的烙印。


Well, today my top story is about what mental health impacts the covid19 pandemic has had on children in China.

Okay so, what are the details?

Okay, so a study has been done by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ psychology institute. And as part of the research, 29,000 Chinese adolescents took part in the survey. And the research has found that in 2020, nearly a quarter of these respondents who were aged between 10 and 19, were suffering from depression, and 7% of them were suffering from severe depression. According to the report, the detection rate actually increased as the students moved up grade levels.

But I guess it’s important to say that we cannot be entirely certain of the coronavirus crisis alone was the leading factor behind all of these mental health issues.

Yeah, that’s an important point. We definitely cannot really 100% pinpoint the pandemic as being behind all these different cases. But, nonetheless, it does seem pretty clear that the outbreak and the subsequent lockdown would have created challenges for children. For example, many students were forced to stay at home for months on end, which obviously interrupted their daily lives. Then there’s also the likelihood that in such a tense situation, there could have been increased family conflicts, which again obviously would have been very unpleasant for kids.

Yep, that all sounds really concerning. So what support is China offering for its young people facing such challenges?

Okay well, it seems like at present the country has policies in place that highlight the importance for children to have a protective environment. So for example, one expert who’s called Wu Fan, and she is a member of the National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council, China’s cabinet, and she has said that hundreds of thousands of so-called left-behind children in rural areas are being given supervisors who will be there to offer them a supportive role while parents are off working in other cities. 

However, in light of the bleak findings that I mentioned earlier on, many Chinese experts are now calling for action to deal with these challenges. Indeed, Wu, who I just mentioned, said that the country should pay more attention to children’s cognitive abilities and coping strategies as well as their emotional connection with their parents. She’s also put a lot of emphasis on the importance of something called preventative intervention, which she says has been largely ignored in China.

And why does preventative intervention matter so much?

Okay well, for this we can look at what another expert has to say on the matter: that’s Zhang Zhen, who’s the secretary general of the Guangzhou-based RiCi Foundation, and Zhen says that the pandemic has really highlighted the necessity of building up mental health resilience early on in life. And the whole point of such preparation is to strengthen children’s mental resilience so that they can then better cope with unexpected challenging events.

But Wu says that because of this strong stigma that surrounds mental health issues in China, it appears that people often wait until they have a diagnosis before they actually seek treatments. Therefore, according to her, there needs to be more effort put into enhancing resilience and promoting children’s mental development.