ABSTRACT

This chapter analyses a special emphasis on understanding service utilization and help-seeking behavior, including factors such as stigma, knowledge, and the roles of peers and other potential gatekeepers in promoting mental health and addressing risk for suicide. It describes the national landscape of student mental health using the most data from the Healthy Minds Study. The framework is depicted unchanged from the original framework that the authors first proposed when applying for funding to begin the project in 2005. The unique contribution of Healthy Minds is to provide the only annual, ongoing study that focuses mainly on mental health in student populations. The chapter examines health and social factors that might contribute or predict mental health and in some cases might also result from poor or good mental health. Physical activity is also correlated with mental health problems, although not to the same degree as sleep problems.