We are developing a best practices repository: a comprehensive, sustainable, publicly accessible repository of evidence about the effectiveness of public health, preventive interventions (programs, services, policies) that address college student mental wellbeing. A key component of the repository is a dynamic learning network, allowing colleges and universities to learn from one another about promising efforts across the country.
Our work to date includes: a report on digital mental health interventions for college populations (funded by the Ruderman Family Foundation white paper series); a research brief, “What Works for Improving Mental Health in Higher Education?” in collaboration with the American Council on Education (ACE); and a comprehensive review of the evidence for student mental health interventions, published in the Handbook of Higher Education: Theory and Practice. Some of the next steps for this initiative will include reports summarizing the evidence on peer support interventions and mindfulness interventions for college and university populations. Another important next step is to convert the information in these reports to “living” information resources on a website, where we will update the evidence frequently as it evolves.
The best practices repository originated from our team at the Healthy Minds Network, and is in partnership with the Hope Center for Student Basic Needs. The work has been informed by conversations with many other leading organizations focused on student mental health, and we look forward to continuing to develop the repository in partnership with these organizations.
The proposed repository and network will represent a novel and highly significant contribution to the current landscape of student mental health. Currently there are no comprehensive databases or repositories of evidence regarding what works for student mental health interventions in higher education. Furthermore, the proposed repository will be different from most existing repositories for other topics and populations in that it will be paired with an active learning network.
As a public, national resource emphasizing a population-level, public health approach, this initiative has potential to benefit millions of students at thousands of institutions each year.
For questions or comments on the proposed repository, please contact one of our project leads: Daniel Eisenberg (Healthy Minds Network and UCLA; [email protected]); Sarah Ketchen Lipson (Healthy Minds Network and Boston University; [email protected]); and Sara Abelson (Hope Center for Student Basic Needs and Temple University; [email protected]). Other key team members include Ashley Johnston (UCLA) and Stephen Schueller (UC-Irvine).