ANDREA MABRY | University RelationsThe COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing debates on racism and racial justice in the United States have taken a toll on the mental health of students across campus, according to a major study by UAB clinicians and researchers. Students also reported their thoughts on how UAB faculty and staff can best respond to mental health needs and issues of race.
“We know that COVID-19 has significantly impacted student health on college and university campuses” across the United States, said Angela Stowe, Ph.D., director of Student Counseling Services at UAB, in an Aug. 30 seminar hosted by the Lister Hill Center for Health Policy. Stowe is one of three co-principal investigators for the COVID-19, Race and Student-Postdoctoral Fellow Mental Health study, along with Robin Lanzi, Ph.D., professor and graduate program director in the Department of Health Behavior, and Lisa Schwiebert, Ph.D., professor and senior associate dean for Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in the Graduate School. (Schwiebert was recently named interim dean of the Graduate School effective Nov. 1.)
“Recent research also shows that faculty know students are suffering and need help, but half report not knowing how to adequately identify and address student mental health needs,” Stowe said. Everywhere she went to discuss these trends, she added, “everyone wanted to know what was happening at UAB, with our students.”
Watch the full initial presentation of the study findings from Aug. 30 above
The need for UAB-specific information helped form the impetus for the COVID-19, Race and Student-Postdoctoral Fellow Mental Health study, which was funded by a grant through the Back of the Envelope Awards in the School of Public Health.
“Participants indicated high levels of stress and rates of depression,” said Lanzi during the presentation. Stress levels were highest among professional students (with 62.2% indicating they were experiencing moderate to high stress), followed by graduate students (56.3%), postdocs (55.8%) and undergraduates (52.4%). When asked ‘How often in the past two weeks have you been bothered by feeling down, depressed or hopeless,’ 29% of undergraduates reported feeling this way more than half of the days or nearly every day, compared with 20% of graduate students, 22% of professional students and 14% of postdocs.
“The inclusion of postdocs in this study was critical as few reports focus on this group of trainees, who are at particular risk for anxiety and burnout given the impact of COVID on research productivity and hiring freezes,” Schwiebert said.
In addition to an overview of their findings, the team shared mental health resources available to students and educational materials for faculty and staff — including several resources added in response to the survey findings. (See below.) A second presentation, scheduled for Nov. 16 (learn more and register here) will take a closer look at findings and solicit additional feedback on next steps among participants in a post-presentation focus group.
ANDREA MABRY | University Relations
“Our goal is to work with students to come up with actionable, sustainable strategies that support shared needs.”
— Angela Stowe, Ph.D., director of Student Counseling Services
Study details
Dig deeper into the study findings Nov. 16
Register to hear the second installment of the investigators' findings noon Nov. 16.
In an anonymous online survey in summer 2020, more than 1,000 undergraduates, graduate students, professional students and postdocs answered more than 60 questions and ranked the top events or obstacles that were having the greatest impact on their mental health. More than 100 students (again from all categories of students and postdocs) took part in a longitudinal study between September 2020 and April 2021.
“Events related to racism and response to race-related events, as well as impacts resulting from quarantining, had the greatest reported impact on student mental health,” Lanzi said. The most-cited events or obstacles were:
- Isolation due to social distancing
- Killings of Black-African Americans and protests (local-national) around racism
- Lack of space to study and do schoolwork
- Difficulty converting to online classes
- Killings of Asian-Asian Americans (this last item was added to the list of potential events/obstacles in spring 2021)
STEVE WOOD | University RelationsCalls to action
The final question on the all-campus survey asked students what they needed from UAB in order to support their mental health. “Our goal is to work with students to come up with actionable, sustainable strategies that support shared needs,” Stowe said.
Responses fell into six major areas:
- Clear communication – this included clear direction on guidelines to follow and clarity about course requirements from faculty
- Support for academics – including a need for compassion and understanding on the part of teachers and consideration of student stress levels in making assignments and grade flexibility
- Mental health support – with accessible counseling services on topics such as coping, stress relief, support groups and positivity, as well as training for faculty and staff in mental health and cultural humility, as well as addressing student needs for social connection
- COVID-19 safety – including clear guidelines and safe spaces on campus for study
- Social injustices – including considering the unique needs of different racial groups and of international students, as well as a desire for “UAB to take action against racism”
- Financial support – including leniency on scholarship requirements and strains on personal finances
ANDREA MABRY | University RelationsResponding to the findings
In direct response to the study findings, Stowe and her team launched a Canvas course titled Supporting Student Mental Health through Teaching (click here or contact Angela Stowe to request access to the course). The course includes an overview of UAB mental health resources, how to recognize mental health concerns, how to respond to a student in crisis or distress, and how to practice mindful communication and promote connections with students. The course also discusses students’ request for more flexibility from instructors, and how to embed self-care and well-being strategies in course content.
Student Counseling Services also offers trainings for faculty and staff through the Center for Teaching and Learning’s Mental Health Matters Series. (Specialized training for departments or units is available by request as well.) “The content of these trainings is fully informed by the results of the study, and I am presenting the results of the study to these faculty as well,” Stowe said.
Another response to the study findings is the Mental Health Ambassadors program, which began as Lanzi’s Faculty Fellows program out of the Honors College in partnership with the School of Public Health and Student Counseling Services. ”Because of the mental health needs expressed by students, in particular for services and education in addition to counseling support, the Mental Health Ambassador program has now become a funded and sustaining program,” Lanzi said. “The program launched in fall 2019 with approximately 40 students seeking to get trained. Speaking to the profound increase in mental health concerns and interest in addressing student mental health needs of students during the pandemic, this number rose sharply to over 100 each in fall 2020 and fall 2021,” added Lanzi, who founded the initiative with Stowe and former Honors College student Juhee Agrawal. “The students provide mental health promotion events, presentations, social media and outreach for their peers at UAB in the areas of mental health awareness, resiliency and self-care,” Lanzi said. The group has an active social media presence, @uabmha for Instagram and Twitter as well as a YouTube channel where they share their presentations and events and their podcast, Archive: Our Lives, Our Journeys, Our Stories. Funding for the program is provided by the Honors College, the School of Public Health and Student Counseling Services.
Lanzi also is creating a new research lab in the School of Public Health’s Department of Health Behavior: the Community Engagement and Translational Sciences Health Promotion Research Team. “Our research team consists of undergrads, master’s students and doctoral students, as well as postdocs and staff who are deeply committed to advancing science and translating findings for individual and population health, particularly around mental health and disability health,” Lanzi said.
ANDREA MABRY | University Relations“The inclusion of postdocs in this study was critical as few reports focus on this group of trainees, who are at particular risk for anxiety and burnout given the impact of COVID on research productivity and hiring freezes.”
— Lisa Schwiebert, Ph.D., professor and senior associate dean for Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in the Graduate School
“There are a lot of options to support students and the mental health of faculty and staff as well,” Stowe said during the presentation. “One of the best ways you can support the mental health of students and postdoctoral fellows is to take care of yourself. We have a wide range of services available to students in the Division of Student Affairs,” she said, including:
- individual and couples counseling
- groups for particular identities and gender transition services
- a counselor in residence in UAB housing
- an embedded counselor in the School of Medicine
One of the resources particularly highlighted by Stowe is the B Well UAB app, which brings together health and wellness resources for students and employees, plus a range of personalized tools. The app launched in January for students and in April for employees. Both groups can create interactive, customizable self-care plans to set goals and track healthy habits, activities and mood each day. The app also includes a live feed of health- and wellness-related events on campus.
The idea for the app came out of discussions with the Student Counseling Services Advisory Board and with student government associations, Stowe says. “The results of the study confirm and support feedback we have received from students that went into the original design of the app,” she said. “And the app content has been influenced and continues to be influenced by what students say they need and want to help them.”
Another upcoming resource Stowe highlighted during the presentation is Togetherall, a peer chat and mental health support platform, which will become available to UAB students in the coming months. “This was influenced by students’ wanting to be able to connect to other students for mental health support,” Stowe said.
Next steps
The principal investigators of the COVID-19, Race and Student-Postdoctoral Mental Health study have presented their findings to leaders across campus and continue to do so. There will be a second seminar Nov. 16 (register here) hosted by the Lister Hill Center for Health Policy in partnership with the School of Public Health, the Graduate School and Student Counseling Services to take a deeper dive into the results and talk about how they can influence policy at UAB. “In the meantime, we are meeting with campus leaders to share the results of the findings and discuss how these findings can impact the kind of support our students need,” Stowe said.
