College Students and Mental Health: Confronting an Emerging Crisis

Mental health issues are alarmingly on the rise among college students, and a serious gap exists in campus services to help them. What can be done to meet this growing need, spurred by issues of anxiety and depression, that has been described as sudden and dramatic by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health? In a spring 2017 survey by the American College Health Association, 39 percent of college students reported feeling so depressed that they were having trouble functioning, and 61 percent said that they had overwhelming anxiety in the previous 12 months. This Forum served as a call to action, asking how to develop a campus culture that prioritizes the prevention of mental health issues and the destigmatization of existing conditions. An expert panel featured leaders from academia, mental health advocacy and psychology, who spoke from a public health and health care delivery perspective. How do we support students in need; remove barriers, particularly for already marginalized students; boost communication; and promote wellness drivers, such as improved sleep, nutrition, exercise and social connectedness? And how do we gather the much-needed evidence for public health policies?

Part of The Dr. Lawrence H. and Roberta Cohn Forums, this event was presented jointly with HuffPost on Tuesday, April 17, 2018.