Universities are at the heels of understanding and solving the mental health crisis among Australian youths – especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds
In December, the University of Newcastle secured more than $480,000 in funding from the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) Discovery Indigenous scheme to support its research on improving the mental health of university students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
This followed the University’s Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education reporting that students with low-socioeconomic status are prone to experiencing higher rates of depression.
However, some believe the mental health of these students can be improved through targeted programs which can increase their socal contact at university.
Dr Olivia Evans from the University’s School of Psychology will be leading the new ARC-funded research.
Her grant includes a three-year fellowship where she will look into university-relevant Facebook groups which can be used to improve online social integration as well as mental well being of these students.
Dr Evans said their research seeks to develop “effective and scalabe interventions that promote social connectedness among traditionall disadvantaged university students.”
“Loneliness and isolation are a growing issue in Australia, and we have found this is particularly true for students who don’t feel like they 'fit in’ when they come to university,” she said.
“It is our aim to understand how we can use technology to address this isolation in a way that suits the needs and particular circumstances of these students.”
Extending a (virtual) helping hand
For its part, the University of Sunshine Coast’s Mind and Neuroscience – Thompson Institute, has developed a free digital tool to connect residents to mental health and suicide prevention services available in the region.
In December, the Institute announced the release of the iHelp Sunshine Coast resource after publishing a study which found that 64% of Sunshine Coast residents believe there is not enough mental helth resources available to them.
Through the iHelp tool, residents can connect to services that matches their needs as well as provides them with information on what they can expect from crisis support lines, emergency services, and other support services.
“Whether a person notices early that their mental health needs attention or whether they are nearing or at a crisis point, it is very important that they can find help quickly and easily, and iHelp exists to help anyone do that,” Thompson Institute director Jim Lagopoulos said.
“We want to help our community to be well connected to mental health services, as this increases their resilience, supports them to thrive and, very importantly, can prevent heartbreaking losses to suicide”.
Preventing youth suicide
The University of Western Australia (UWA) is also embarking on an interdisciplinary study in a bid to understand the triggers of youth suicide and prevent such incidents in the future. The University recently received a $100,000 grant from Young Lives Mattere Foundation to pursue this research.
Professor Andrew Page, UWA’s pro vice-chancellor for research, noted that understanding the triggers are difficult as these are complex and can vary between individuals.
Professor Page will be joined by UWA Faculty of Heath and Medical Sciences associate dean Professor Sean Hood and UWA Centre for Child & Adolescent Realted Disorders director Professor Stephen Houghton as the leads for the research teams.
Key areas of the research will include exploring loneliness in adolescents generally as a developmental risk for vulnerability and looking into suicidal behaviours which will feed into work to develop a vulnerability index.
“The index will be used to predict adolescent suicide and will also examine the risk factors of adolescent self-harm,” Professor Page said.
“In addition, to create the vulnerability index we will examine the role of ‘positive disintegration’ which looks at how people respond to anxiety and psychological tension”.