http://www-personal.umich.edu/~daneis/symposium/2012/readings/Hunt_Eisenberg2010.pdf

Mental Health Problems and Help-Seeking Behavior Among College Students

Background: Student mental health in higher education has been an increasing concern. The COVID-19 pandemic situation has brought this vulnerable population into renewed focus.
Objective: Our study aims to conduct a timely assessment of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of college students.
Methods: We conducted interview surveys with 195 students at a large public university in the United States to understand the effects of the pandemic on their mental health and well-being. The data were analyzed through quantitative and qualitative methods.
Results: Of the 195 students, 138 (71%) indicated increased stress and anxiety due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Multiple stressors were identified that contributed to the increased levels of stress, anxiety, and depressive thoughts among students. These included fear and worry about their own health and of their loved ones (177/195, 91% reported negative impacts of the pandemic), difficulty in concentrating (173/195, 89%), disruptions to sleeping patterns (168/195, 86%), decreased social interactions due to physical distancing (167/195, 86%), and increased concerns on academic performance (159/195, 82%). To cope with stress and anxiety, participants have sought support from others and helped themselves by adopting either negative or positive coping mechanisms.
Conclusions: Due to the long-lasting pandemic situation and onerous measures such as lockdown and stay-at-home orders, the COVID-19 pandemic brings negative impacts on higher education. The findings of our study highlight the urgent need to develop interventions and preventive strategies to address the mental health of college students.

/pdf/effects-of-covid-19-on-college-students-mental-health-in-the-5cjqdtjg9b.pdf

Effects of COVID-19 on College Students' Mental Health in the United States: Interview Survey Study.

Why People Die by Suicide

Here, we review the research we have conducted on social contagion. We describe the methods we have employed (and the assumptions they have entailed) to examine several datasets with complementary strengths and weaknesses, including the Framingham Heart Study, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and other observational and experimental datasets that we and others have collected. We describe the regularities that led us to propose that human social networks may exhibit a ‘three degrees of influence’ property, and we review statistical approaches we have used to characterize interpersonal influence with respect to phenomena as diverse as obesity, smoking, cooperation, and happiness. We do not claim that this work is the final word, but we do believe that it provides some novel, informative, and stimulating evidence regarding social contagion in longitudinally followed networks. Along with other scholars, we are working to develop new methods for identifying causal effects using social network data, and we believe that this area is ripe for statistical development as current methods have known and often unavoidable limitations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

/pdf/social-contagion-theory-examining-dynamic-social-networks-4usp1qzmeh.pdf

Social contagion theory: examining dynamic social networks and human behavior

Interventions to reduce stress in university students: A review and meta-analysis

Mental illness stigma has been identified by national policy makers as an important barrier to help seeking for mental health. Using a random sample of 5,555 students from a diverse set of 13 unive...

/pdf/stigma-and-help-seeking-for-mental-health-among-college-4wzke9rcr3.pdf

Stigma and help seeking for mental health among college students

Objectives: Many suicidal college students do not receive mental health treatment, and the reasons for this are not fully understood. This study examines how attitudes, beliefs, and social network factors relate to help seeking among suicidal students. Participants: A random sample of 8,487 undergraduate and graduate students from 15 US universities participated. Methods: A Web-based survey administered in spring 2009 examined correlates of mental health service utilization among students reporting serious thoughts of suicide in the previous year (n = 543). Results: Correlates of treatment use included perceived need, beliefs that treatment is effective, contact with service users, lower personal stigma, higher perceived stigma, fewer positive relationships, and sexual minority or Caucasian identity. Conclusions: Help seeking among suicidal students is associated with a range of personal and social network factors. Campus strategies to enhance help seeking should be tailored to address identified...

Help Seeking and Treatment Use Among Suicidal College Students

From a policy standpoint, the spread of health conditions in social networks is important to quantify, because it implies externalities and possible market failures in the consumption of health interventions. Recent studies conclude that happiness and depression may be highly contagious across social ties. The results may be biased, however, because of selection and common shocks. We provide unbiased estimates by using exogenous variation from college roommate assignments. Our findings are consistent with no significant overall contagion of mental health and no more than small contagion effects for specific mental health measures, with no evidence for happiness contagion and modest evidence for anxiety and depression contagion. The weakness of the contagion effects cannot be explained by avoidance of roommates with poor mental health or by generally low social contact among roommates. We also find that similarity of baseline mental health predicts the closeness of roommate relationships, which highlights the potential for selection biases in studies of peer effects that do not have a clearly exogenous source of variation. Overall, our results suggest that mental health contagion is lower, or at least more context specific, than implied by the recent studies in the medical literature.

/pdf/social-contagion-of-mental-health-evidence-from-college-1z1xcch66u.pdf

Social contagion of mental health: evidence from college roommates

Effects of contact with treatment users on mental illness stigma: Evidence from university roommate assignments

Reducing stigma associated with mental health concerns is a key objective of suicide prevention policies. Although the primary aim of these efforts is to promote help-seeking, the problem of stigma...

Marilyn F. Downs

Papers

Stigma and help seeking for mental health among college students

Help Seeking and Treatment Use Among Suicidal College Students

Social contagion of mental health: evidence from college roommates

Effects of contact with treatment users on mental illness stigma: Evidence from university roommate assignments

Changing the Meaning of Help: Clinical Approaches to Reducing Stigma among Suicidal Young Adults: