Study finds improvements in mental health of college students

In the latest edition of the Healthy Minds Study, which surveyed the mental health of more than 100,000 college students at 196 institutions during the 2023-24 academic year, researchers found that though mental health continues to be an issue at universities, the prevalence of mental illnesses and other negative wellness factors has declined. Run by the Healthy Minds Network, an organization based out of the University of Michigan and Boston University, the study found decreases in categories such as depressive symptoms, eating disorders, suicidal ideation and anxiety compared to the previous year’s survey. 

The Healthy Minds Study was initially developed in 2005 by Daniel Eisenberg, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who formerly taught at the U-M School of Public Health. First released in 2007, the study has since grown to survey more than 800,000 students from more than 600 institutions in total.

In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Justin Heinze, a principal investigator for HMN and an associate professor of health behavior and education at the U-M Public Health School, said the study was created to measure mental health in higher education and to allow institutions to tailor wellness services to their students’ needs.

“The goal was to understand the prevalence of things like anxiety and depression on college campuses, and to see if there was an alignment with the availability of services to support those students,” Heinze said. “Much of the utility of the study was to not just create awareness, but then also help schools recognize this is where we have a disconnect between what students need and what we have to offer.”

Comparing the most recent HMS data to the year prior, the study found that the percentage of students experiencing severe depressive symptoms decreased from 20% to 19%, moderate depressive symptoms decreased from 42% to 38% and anxiety decreased from 36% to 34%. Nonsuicidal self-injury and eating disorders also decreased in prevalence, among other categories. Positive mental health, measured using the Flourishing Scale’s eight questions on a person’s self-perceived success and fulfillment, increased from 36% to 38%. Heinze said that although future data would be needed to ensure that these concerns are on the decline, he was happy to see that this year’s results were more positive than the last.

“It’s hard to tease out in the way that this survey is conducted what might be driving these changes, but we’re certainly happy and hopeful that we’re seeing a peak,” Heinze said. “As more and more schools are recognizing that mental health is an intricate part of students’ learning experience, more and more schools are trying to put mental health professionals in place. … It all could be playing into why we might be starting to see a tip in a very positive direction here, but we’ll have to wait for the next couple of years to really understand, ‘Is this just a flip, or are we starting to see a sustained decrease?’”

The researchers theorized that the decrease in mental health concerns may be due to the additional emphasis on wellness that colleges have placed on their campuses in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In an interview with The Daily, Erin Voichoski, a research area specialist at HMN, said this increase in resources could improve overall health on campus.

“I think there’s like more research that needs to be done to confirm, but we suspect that hopefully this is because there’s been greater attention paid to student mental health concerns, probably as a result of COVID-19,” Voichoski said. “Hopefully, in turn, that means that schools have been investing more in their mental health services and resources for students on their campuses, and that all of that is contributing to a better climate for mental health … and then better outcomes for students.”

In an interview with The Daily, LSA senior Jack Weinberg, the executive director of the Wolverine Support Network, a student organization that leads support groups and advocates for positive mental health at the University, said WSN also experienced an increase in activity during the pandemic but that student demand for their services has declined in recent semesters.

“We’ve actually had similar results in our organization,” Weinberg said. “We’ve seen decreasing group sign-ups over the past few semesters. … One of the big reasons I think we had a big increase in group assignments a year or two ago was because of COVID and people coming out of COVID feeling isolated, more lonely. As people have come to just get out of the pandemic … (they) have been able to readjust and solidify their lives again.”

COVID-19 may not be the only factor responsible for mental health concerns on campus. Students’ mental wellness has been on the decline in years prior to the pandemic, according to Heinze.

“We actually, prior to this year, had experienced about 10 straight years of increases (in negative mental health outcomescategories),” Heinze said. “Explanations like, ‘Oh, this must just be the pandemic or something,’ don’t really hold up because we’ve been seeing this since about 2015 now.”

Between the most recent study and the data from a year prior, percentages rose in students’ utilization of mental health and wellness treatments, with increases in the percent of students with mental health concerns using counseling, taking psychiatric medication and having a diagnosis of a mental disorder at some point during their lifetime. Heinze said the decade of mental health decline found in the HMS data may be due to more open conversations about mental illness and higher percentages of students seeking treatment for such symptoms.

“Is it really that we’re seeing an increase in the prevalence of some of these challenges, or are we perhaps just getting better at recognizing it, better at asking for help with less stigma around mental health, and therefore we see more treatment?” Heinze said.

According to the researchers, interested institutions can administer the study on a rolling basis during the academic year. While schools receive individual data sets specific to their institutions, HMN also compiles the year’s complete data into the HMS aggregated report. In an interview with The Daily, Brenda Vyletel, a HMS coordination lead, said she hopes external researchers and institutions use the data to influence their policymaking.

“We gather the data and we provide it to the schools, and it’s up to the schools to use their strategies to interpret it and apply it in ways that would help the students,” Vyletel said. “We do serve our participating schools in that way, but it’s also really beneficial to the larger research community because it does provide national data sets that are then open to other researchers.”

Aside from asking about mental health, the HMS surveys students on topics such as substance usage, racism, athletics, financial situations and lifestyle choices. To tailor the study to their student bodies, schools electing to conduct the survey on their campus can also add additional subject modules and school-specific questions to the questionnaire. Heinze said the process of generating the annual survey was a balance between consistency and adapting to new issues.

“(The survey) has been around now for about almost 20 years, and we try to keep some measures consistent,” Heinze said. “These measures for depression, anxiety, etc. have been in the survey since the beginning, and we try to keep them the same so that we can document changes in prevalence … but there are often new topics or emerging topics that we work as a team to develop here at the University of Michigan, or we’re pulling in scholars from around the country who are experts in this area.”

Voichoski said she believes the work of the HMN is important to students because of how pivotal the college experience is to personal development.

“College students are in this very developmental phase of life,” Voichoski said. “I think colleges and universities have a really unique opportunity to intervene or even prevent mental health concerns in the first place, developing a culture where it’s okay to talk about mental health and seek treatment, if needed.”

Weinberg said he hopes that mental health continues to be addressed on campus and wants to see additional progress in destigmatizing the topic among students.

“I hope to see it a lot more openly talked about and a lot more destigmatized,” Weinberg said. “That’s the main goal of our organization, to destigmatize talking about mental health across campus. I think there’s been a lot of progress in that over the recent years, just as people have become more aware of their own mental health and how important it is to talk about it. But I just hope that it becomes an issue which has obviously absolutely no stigma … the closer we get, the better.”

Daily Staff Reporter Marissa Corsi can be reached at macorsi@umich.edu. 

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