The Effect of School Resources on Student Mental Health under the Norwegian Curriculum Reform

Mental disorder among children and adolescents represent a major global public health challenge. A meta-analysis by Shorey et al. (2022) reported a substantial increase in the pooled prevalence of elevated depressive symptoms among adolescents, rising from 24% in the period 2001–2010 to 37% between 2011 and 2020. Many countries have also raised concerns about the increasingly prevalence of mental disorder (Kieling et al., 2011; McGorry et al., 2024). In the United States, for instance, rates of major depressive episodes among adolescents nearly doubled between 2009 and 2019, with particularly sharp increases among adolescent girls (Wilson & Dumornay, 2022). During the same period, suicidal ideation, self-harm hospitalizations, and other severe outcomes also rose, prompting national policymakers to describe the situation as a youth mental health crisis (Keyes et al., 2019). These trends, intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic, signal broader societal shifts affecting adolescents’ wellbeing. They also suggest that elevated early-life mental disorder prevalence may persist into adulthood, posing a long-term risk. Similar patterns have been documented in Europe and Norway. Research shows a steady rise in mental disorder among Norwegian adolescents (Holte, 2024; Krokstad et al., 2022; Von Soest et al., 2022). A population-based Norwegian study among adolescents reported increasing levels of psychological distress between 2014 and 2018 (Myhr et al., 2020). Mental illnesses typically emerge early in the life course, with the highest risk of onset occurring around mid-adolescence. Epidemiological evidence indicates that approximately 63–75% of mental disorders begin before the age of 25, meaning that the majority of cases develop during childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood (McGorry et al., 2024), which may likely to have lasting consequences for later adulthood functioning, health, productivity, and educational attainment (von Simson et al., 2022). Because untreated mental disorders can lead to substantial social and economic costs, the growing burden presents an urgent societal concern (Bor et al., 2014; Ekeberg & Abebe, 2021). Schools and education systems have increasingly been recognized as an important setting for mental health promotion and early detection of mental disorders (Kazuo et al., 2025; Levitt et al., 2007; Soneson et al., 2020). Children spend much of their formative developmental period in school, making it a pivotal arena for identifying emerging mental disorders, initiating prevention efforts, and buffering the effects of adverse environments (Fazel et al., 2014). Integrating mental health initiatives into educational contexts is therefore viewed as a proactive and scalable strategy for population-level prevention. In this line, Norway has implemented a nationwide curriculum reform, Kunnskapsløftet 2020 (LK20), which introduced Health and Life Skills (HLS) as an interdisciplinary topic intended, among other aims, to strengthen students’ competencies related to mental health and well-being. Education is compulsory for ten years and the national curriculum is centrally determined (Lovdata, 1998; The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, 2022). Norwegian schools, therefore, represent a powerful arena for influencing the mental health of children and adolescents at a population level. However, the effectiveness of this reform depends on the availability, allocation, and appropriate utilization of school resources, which together determine schools’ capacity to implement the curriculum as intended. The present study seeks to examine how various resources (e.g., financial, personnel) shape student mental health outcomes within the context of the LK20 reform. Taking advantage of the staggered rollout of LK20 across grades and schools, the study employs a natural experiment design and draws on national registry data and school-level survey data on resource utilization.