Evidence supporting a combined movement behavior approach for children and youth's mental health – A scoping review and environmental scan

Associations between physical activity (PA), sedentary behavior (SED), and sleep – 24-h movement behaviors (MBs) – and children/youth's mental health (MH) is well-established though often only examined separately. This scoping review sought to answer the question: What evidence is there on the association between 24-h movement behaviors and children/youth's mental health and what integrated knowledge mobilization applications/tools exist? Included articles examined all three MBs and MH among children/youth. The electronic search was conducted in June 2022 on PsycINFO, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus. An environmental was conducted to search for MB and MH integrated knowledge mobilization applications/tools. A total of 55 articles were included, where 42 reported on combined MB and MH; 27/42 (64%) examined MB and mental wellness; 27/42 (64%) examined MB and indicators of mental illness; an overlap of 12/42 (29%) articles examined MB in relation to both mental wellness and illness. In total, 21/27 (78%) articles reported a positive and 6/27 (22%) reported no association between combined MB and mental wellness. Additionally, 23/27 (85%) reported a negative association between combined MB and indicators of mental illness and 4/27 (15%) reported no association. The environmental scan revealed one tool that examined how integrated MBs are associated with MH outcomes. There is a wealth of knowledge on the association between combined MB and MH though only one tool examined how combined MB and MH are associated. Efforts are warranted to better track and intervene on population and individual-level 24-h MB for MH promotion and disease prevention.