Our general research area, conducted as part of the HASS Scholars Program, is mental health stigmas. Our work was conducted through a survey sent to students online on the Miami University Oxford campus. We asked: How does stigma regarding mental health affect historically underrepresented populations on campus? This study is relevant in that our group learned how to collaborate on a collegiate level and the study also strengthened our writing skills. This topic impacts every student on campus because every student is learning how to protect their health and well-being. Most respondents were willing to seek help but many respondents noted that the resources were poor. Our findings are inconclusive as we did not have a large sample size of our demographic. This topic requires further review. We did find that: while there is not much of a stigma regarding seeking or needing mental health support on campus (some students did state that they would not support peers struggling with their mental health and 1/5th of the respondents said they would not access mental health resources), there is a major stigma regarding how poor the resources are on campus. This study allows us to move forward because it provides us with concrete evidence that many students are willing to seek help but they have concerns about whether those resources are sufficient.
Author(s): Lana Money, Political Science Major
Briana Calloway, Psychology and Premedical Studies Major
Jill Fanning, Geography and Sustainability Major
Advisor(s): Carolyn Craig, DEIB & Visiting Faculty, College of Arts and Science
Abigail Morgan, University Libraries
You must be logged in to post a comment.