Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Post-secondary students are facing a rapidly worsening mental health crisis that overlaps with when youth are most vulnerable to new mental illnesses and are adjusting to new stressors. Campuses are overwhelmed by a record-high demand for mental health support, leaving many students without timely access to it with increased risk for chronic illness, disability, or impaired social, cultural, and economic participation. While some initiatives have tried to address this, they are often disjointed, untested, and do not address the spectrum of mental health needs, from education to more intense support. My research will assess if newly developed digital resources, which I have already shown are feasible to implement and accepted by students, can fill this gap. Specifically, I will assess how a 1) first-of-its-kind, student-tailored mental health literacy course and 2) symptom-tailored goal planning and referral tool, intended as early or medium-intensity resources, impact students and whether they improve mental health outcomes. I will have the unique opportunity to link data to a large cohort study on student mental health and campus health services data to assess potential mechanisms and health outcomes, like symptoms of common mental health disorders, new diagnoses, and students' use of more intense support. I hypothesize that by improving mental health literacy and self-awareness and reducing barriers to support, these resources will improve mental health outcomes. This project directly builds on 5 years of previous work with 8 Canadian and UK partners who will also pilot these tools. With our collective expertise, cost-effective and rapidly deployable digital resources, that cater to a spectrum of mental health needs, may finally be rigorously tested. Our findings will inform how institutions can adapt to immediately meet student mental health needs but also nurture individuals who are healthier and more successful over their lifetimes.