Once you start following the debate about young people and psychotropic drugs, you see the word “overmedicated” bandied around a lot.

I’ve argued before that deeming kids overmedicated without saying what constitutes properly medicated doesn’t make a lot of sense. Still, at least we have some idea of approximately what percentage of kids in the United States – and, to a lesser extent, in other countries – take various kinds of psychiatric meds. What we don’t know is how long the kids continue to take these medications.

This is a frustrating knowledge gap if, like me, you’re interested in the long-term “psychosocial” effects of taking meds – that is, how the experience shapes kids’ outlooks and identities.

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