Background

Mental health is best conceived as a public good worth investing in for sustainable development. Already before 2020, prevalence studies estimated that in youth aged 25 years or less up to 1 in 5 would have experienced some kind of mental health disorders, psychological distress, or both. Moreover, recent data and models from the global burden of disease studies (GBD) indicate that a third of the overall burden of mental disorders (according, for example, to DALYs) concentrates in the age-group 15 to 24 yrs. The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated this situation and put a spotlight on mental health, particularly in young people. The topic students’ mental health was first raised bottom-up by SSPH+ students and faculty in the Academic Board of IGC. Follow-up meetings led to the plenary and workshop at the SSPH+ 2024 retreat and the development of a inter-university project on mental health in (PhD-)students. The project will enable a deeper inter-university collaboration regarding students’ mental health at SSPH+ universities.

Objectives

The aim of the project is to further develop a Student Mental Health initiative and joint research activities.

Results

By the end of this project, we will have defined:

1. The overall scope of the SSPH+ mental health initiative:
2. Data needs/joint survey items/instrument
3. Mapping of existing interventions in Switzerland and beyond for the above target groups