National mental health initiative will identify teens at risk.

Addressing the issue that only a third of adolescents at risk of mental illness are identified and treated, health and education leaders at Columbia University announced recently a groundbreaking national initiative to offer voluntary mental health screening for teens.

The initiative, Positive Action for Teen Health (PATH), builds on a decade of research that shows that a simple confidential screening of teens is effective in detecting adolescents at risk for depression, suicide and other mental illnesses.

PATH officials say the program goal is to ensure that every American teen receives a mental health check-up before graduating from high school.

"In an hour or less it is now possible to find young people with serious mental health problems, many who are suffering silently and …