The Healthy Minds Survey is an annual online survey which has been used at over 450 colleges and universities since its launch in 2007. It provides a look into students mental health through the use of three core modules which include Demographics, Mental Health Status, and Service Utilization. Individual universities can also subscribe to elective modules which can give further insight into different mental health issues. These include substance use, sleep, eating and body image, sexual assault, and overall health.Sewanee has been administering this survey since 2017, excluding the 2021-2022 school year. This survey is emailed to all university students who are then given the option to fill it out.
Our team partnered with the University Wellness Center here at Sewanee, who were interested in gaining a deeper understanding of issues such as social isolation, suicidality, substance abuse, and sexual assault. We used five years of HMS survey responses to create visuals and analyze the data related to these issues. This is a dataset that includes all five years of survey data with 1,462 responses. That being said, throughout the years student responses have overall decreased since the first years, and some groups are better represented than others. The following graphs show the demographic breakdown of the HMS over the years compared with data from Sewanee’s Office of Instituional Research, in order to give a better understanding of how well the survey sample represents the student population.
Navigate to different sections by using the tabs at the top of each page. Some visualizations are reactive to drop down menus. The year drop down menu is at the top of each page, and it can be used to sort by an individual year for any section where the years are specified in the title. Many outputs also have demographic drop down menus. These allow you to specify which demographic you’d like to sort the data by. In order to see annual trends, please select ‘All Years’ from the year menu and select ‘Annual Trends’ in the demographic menu. Additionally, you can view the relationship between demographics and their scores on mental health screening tests for positive mental health, depression, and anxiety. The specific values of these three tests can be found at the bottom of the mental health utilization tab.
Some demographics such as American Indian/Alaska Native were moved into the 'other' category for future race sorted demographics due to their small population size.
Phone: (931) 598-1325
Email: caps@sewanee.edu
24/7 Wellness Center Crisis Line: (931) 598-1700
Nationwide Mental Health Emergency and Suicide Prevention Hotline: 988
SAMHSA’s National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or TTY: 1-800-487-4889 or text your zip code to 435748 (HELP4U)
Chattanooga Rape Crisis Center: 423-755-2700
24-Hour Sexual Assault Violence Response Team (Nashville): 1-800-879-1999
RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network): 1-800-656-4673
Southern Tennessee Regional Hospital - Sewanee: 931-598-5691
Drug-Free Workplace Helpline: 1-800-WORKPLACE (967-5752)
Email: dwp@samhsa.hhs.gov
The following questions ask questions related to Social Isolation and Loneliness. According to the National Institute on Aging, loneliness is defined as the distressing feeling of being seperated or alone. Social isolation is the lack of social contacts or having few people to interact with on a regular basis. You may live alone but not feel lonely, and you can feel lonely while being with other people (Loneliness and Social Isolation — Tips for Staying Connected, n.d.)
* Class Year refers to the question "What year are you in your current degree program?", where 1 = 1st Year, 2 = 2nd Year, etc.
* Class Year refers to the question "What year are you in your current degree program?", where 1 = 1st Year, 2 = 2nd Year, etc.
Depression is measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), a nine-item instrument based on the symptoms provided in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders for a major depressive episode in the past two weeks (Spitzer, Kroenke, & Williams, 1999). Following the standard algorithm for interpreting the PHQ-9, symptom levels are categorized as severe (scores ≥20), moderately severe (scores 15-19), moderate (scores 10-14), mild (scores 5-9). There is no name for the category of scores from 0-4, so we use 'minimal.'
Anxiety is measured using the GAD-7, a seven-item screening tool for screening and severity measuring of generalized anxiety disorder in the past two weeks (Spitzer, Kroenke, Williams, & Lowe, 2006). Following the standard algorithm for interpreting the GAD-7, symptom levels are categorized as severe (scores ≥15), moderate (scores 10-14), mild (scores 5-9), and minimal (scores 0-4).
Positive mental health (psychological well-being) is measured using The Flourishing Scale, an eight-item summary measure of the respondent's self-perceived success in important areas such as relationships, selfesteem, purpose, and optimism (Diener, Wirtz, Tov, Kim-Prieto, Choi, Oishi, & Biswas-Diener , 2009). The score ranges from 8-56, and we are using 48 as the threshold for positive mental health.
Overall, students who are black, mixed race, or fall into the ‘other’ category tend to feel the most socially isolated on our campus. We also noticed that after 2017 students agreed at a much higher rate that they see themselves as a part of the campus community. We also found that most students agreed that they had a group, community, or social circle where they belong at Sewanee.
We found that the percentage of students who would reach out to no one if they were experiencing serious emotional distress increased every year from 2018 to 2022. We also found that this number decreases by class year, meaning that more freshmen report that they would not reach out to anyone than seniors, who were less likely to use than answer on the survey. Students’ knowledge of campus resources tends to remain consistent with around 90% of students every year being knowledgeable of campus resources. We found that 79% of freshmen reported knowing where to find campus resources which was significantly lower than the 92% of seniors who knew where to find campus resources. Additionally regarding knowledge of resources, we found a difference between women, whom 90% reported knowledge of campus resources, and men, whom only 82% reported knowledge of campus resources.
My name is Ava Justice. I’m a rising junior at Sewanee and am majoring in psychology with a minor in neuroscience. I joined DataLab because I am passionate about projects that promote social good and was interested in learning a variety of new skills. If you have any questions my email is justiak0@sewanee.edu
My name is Jack Hagan. I’m a rising junior at Sewanee and I’m double majoring in neuroscience and philosophy. I joined datalab to learn new skills like coding in python, something that has been immensely helpful in making our project dashboard. Thank you for viewing our project. If you have any questions, you can email me at haganjt0@sewanee.edu.
My name is Stevie Mack Jr. I am a rising junior at Sewanee: The University of the South and I am a mathematics major. I joined DataLab to learn new skills for coding and I am passionate about doing projects for social good. Learning how to code helped me to do feature engineering which became beneficial for our project. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out, my email is macksl0@sewanee.edu.
My name is Keith Young. I am a rising sophomore and a computer science major at The College of Wooster. I joined datalab to further my coding skills and to have the opportunity to work with data for social good. If you have any questions, my email is keithy822@gmail.com.
The Sewanee DataLab program makes the power of data analytics accessible for the greater good. We accomplish this by training and supporting a new generation of data scientists who work exclusively on social impact projects. The Sewanee DataLab seeks to expand the definition of data science and what it means to be a data scientist by training undergraduate students, academics, and professionals from a wide range of disciplines. Sewanee DataLab participants learn to understand and use data equitably to benefit those they serve.