Editorial Perspective: Reducing mental health disparities among underserved youth: using technology to equip parents as agents of change

Prevalence rates for youth psychopathology have steadily increased over the last two decades. Youth from underserved families (e.g. racial/ethnic minority, rural, poor, gender, and sexual minority) are disparately impacted as they face myriad risk factors that adversely affect their mental health. Parents play an integral role in their mental health of underserved youth as they are responsible for making sure that their children get the help that they need. Yet, parents in underserved families often cannot access mental health treatment due to persistent barriers they face such as stigma, discrimination, and high treatment costs, to name a few. Consequently, parents from these families are less likely to receive the psychological training necessary to intervene in their youths' mental health. Although traditional parent management training programs have made progress toward equipping parents with important mental health services, these programs often require considerable investment of time and resources (e.g. money, childcare, in-person attendance) that make them inaccessible to disadvantaged families. Digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) offer to provide parents in underserved families with the psychological training they need to effectively intervene in their youth's mental health while overcoming barriers to care. However, few to no culturally sensitive and evidence-based DMHIs exist to address the mental health needs of underserved families. This editorial perspective highlights the need to develop and implement parent-focused DMHIs for underserved families so that parents will have the mental health resources they need to act as agents of change.