Addressing burgeoning unmet needs in college mental health

Abstract

America is experiencing burgeoning mental health needs of their college students. Measuring the impact of mental health challenges for these students and the natural ways they adapt to them might enable smart triage of limited mental health resources. This may, in part, be achieved through a combination of technology-assisted personalized measurement-based care, treatment matching, and peer-support. Helping students self-monitor and organize their personal peer networks can destigmatize and increase accessibility to timely mental health care, especially for students of marginalized identities, who might otherwise be hesitant to receive care or be misdiagnosed. A collaborative effort among students, educators, clinicians, and health technology innovators may provide more tractable solutions for student unmet needs than any single entity or resource alone. Novel resources, tailored through a healthy equity lens that is individualized and culturally-sensitive, may meaningfully meet a student’s needs, preferences, and acceptability, and translate to daily use and informed decision-making.

Keywords:

• College mental health
• counseling
• depression
• digital technology
• peer support

Competing interests

The authors declare that there are no competing interests related to this Comment. MKS has received research support from Stanford’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, National Institutes of Health, and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute. She is on the advisory board for Sunovion and Skyland Trail, is a consultant for Johnson and Johnson, Neumora, and Alkermes, and receives honoraria from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and royalties from American Psychiatric Association Publishing and Thrive Global. OF is the Founder and CEO of Flourish Labs. No other authors report any biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.

Author contribution

MKS and OF conceptualized and wrote the first draft of this article. MKS, AM, LH and OF contributed to revising the manuscript and approving the final submission and revision.

Funding

No funding was used to support this Comment and/or the preparation of the manuscript.