An Imperative to Include Children’s Voices in Policy Development: Part of the Solution to Understanding the Impact of Policy on Children’s Mental Health

The recent JAACAP editorial by Pumariega¹ uses evidence of the unintended consequences of US immigration policy to offer a broader lesson about the direct and indirect consequences of policy on the mental health of children and youth (herein children). Pumariega calls for data standards and transparency for state-level databases on policies affecting the status of children to "move us toward evidence-based vs ideologically based policy …