Research on Adolescent and Young Adult Mental Health
What's New at the Healthy Minds Network
Condemning Anti-Asian American Racism and Violence
Our team at the Healthy Minds Network is horrified by the senseless and tragic continued displays of white supremacist racist violence. We stand in solidarity with the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities during this time. Most recently, racism manifested in the loss of eight lives in Atlanta, GA. Discrimination and racism against AAPIs is not a new phenomenon. Rather, anti-AAPI responses to the COVID-19 pandemic at both governmental and community levels have further exacerbated the presence of xenophobia and hate crimes against AAPI communities, inducing negative downstream impacts on population mental health.
Read the full statement here.
[09.11.2020] The Healthy Minds Network, JED Foundation, and Active Minds have collaborated to release a toolkit to support data-driven advocacy for enhancing mental health support on campus. Feel free to check out the link below to help your efforts.
College Student Mental Health Action Toolkit
[7.9.2020] The Impact of COVID-19 on College Student Well-Being
The Healthy Minds Network, which runs the Healthy Minds Study (HMS), in collaboration with the American College Health Association, which runs the National College Health Assessment (ACHA-NCHA), developed a new set of survey items related to students’ experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic. The new items focused on students’ attitudes, concerns, preventive behaviors, and their perceived supportiveness of college and universities related to COVID-19. These items were fielded to random samples of college students on participating campuses across the United States between March and May 2020.
Click here to view the report in full: HMN+ACHA COVID-19 Report 2020
Follow this link to view the current COVID-19 survey questions-HMN |ACHA COVID-19 Survey Questions. These questions were designed as an elective module, and may be included in your institution’s iteration of HMS in addition to the 3 core modules. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve, HMN is working with experts and health officials to revise and refine the COVID-19 module so that it may be most relevant and timely for students in the Fall and Spring. If your campus has any questions, suggestions or recommendations for additional measures to include in the COVID-19 module for Fall 2020, please contact hms-coordination@umich.edu.
New article Examining Help-Seeking Intentions of African American College Students Diagnosed with Depression uses data from the Healthy Minds Study.
Abstract: A depressed African American emerging adult’s intention to seek help can be affected by the severity of their mental health or perception of self-flourishing, or positive mental health. Using the Healthy Minds Study, a nationally representative dataset, utilization of mental health services among African American emerging adult students who have been diagnosed with depression by a health professional (n=201), and the mediating effect of positive mental health on help-seeking intentions were examined. The findings revealed that 89.45% of students reported help-seeking intentions, and they may have one or more than one way of seeking help from a professional clinician, roommate or friend, or significant [other]. The findings show that there are specific groups of people that African Americans prefer to engage with when addressing their mental health. It is critical that we consider these groups when developing interventions or programs for their service access on college campuses and beyond.