Olivia F
- Research Program Mentor
PhD Doctor of Philosophy candidate
Expertise
child and adolescent mental health, mental health interventions, accessibility of mental health care, psychology, public health
Project ideas
Using Social Media to Expand Access to Mental Health Support for Teens
About 20% of people will develop mental health challenges, such as anxiety and depression, that require mental health care before adolescence. However, more than 80% of these teens will never access the mental health care that they need. Indeed, mental health care is highly inaccessible for teens, as a result of logistical (e.g., cost, transportation) and societal (e.g., mental health stigma) barriers. One solution may be integrating mental health supports into environments within which teens spend a lot of their time. Currently, particularly popular environments for teens are social media platforms, such as Instagram. Thus, there may be benefits to incorporating mental health supports within these platforms. In this research project, your mission is to... (1) Conduct a literature review that covers existing research on efforts to integrate mental health supports within social media platforms (2) Explore the top priorities of social media platform companies and design a proposal for persuading these companies to promote mental wellness among teen users (3) Propose content for the mental health supports based on your review of scientific data (4) Test the effectiveness of a mental health support integrated within a social media platform