Substance Use and College Student Health
Daniel EisenbergUniversity of Michigan
Workshop on “Future Technology to Preserve College Student Health and Foster Wellbeing”
Northwestern University, July 30, 2015
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Outline of Presentation
Basic Facts about Substance Use in College Populations
Our Approach: Link with Mental Health
Core Challenge: Engagement (of students, researchers, providers, administrators, policymakers)
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Basic Facts: Prevalence of Substance Use among College Students
Binge drinking (past 2 weeks) 41%
Cigarette smoking (past 30 days) 13%
Marijuana use (past 30 days) 16%
(2015 Healthy Minds Study, N~15,000)
Similar statistics to
Alcohol use disorder 20% (vs 17% same-age non-college)
Drug disorder 5% (vs 7% same-age non-college)
Nicotine dependence 15% (vs 21% same-age non-college)
(2001-2002 NESARC, reported in Blanco et al., 2008 Arch Gen Psych)
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Basic Facts: Widely Used Online Programs
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Our Approach: Link with Mental Health
Psychological distress: cause and consequence of risky substance use
Major depressive symptoms significantly correlated with binge drinking (Pedrelli et al., 2015 manuscript submitted for
publication)
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Core Challenge: Engagement
Engaging students in:
helping themselves
mental health services
positive coping skills
helping others
bystander/upstander behaviors
intervention development, testing, dissemination
Tinyshifts: Brief Videos to Promote Help-seeking and Coping Skills
“Tinyshifts” on YouTube
Crowdsourcing Coping Skills
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Healthy Minds Student Leader Coalition
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Healthy Minds Network(>100 schools, >100,000 students)
Source: data.healthymindsnetwork.org
Economic Case for Mental Health Services
Eisenberg, D., Golberstein, E., Hunt, J. (2009). Mental Health and Academic Success in College. B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy 9(1) (Contributions): Article 40.
Contact Information
Daniel Eisenberg: [email protected]
Healthy Minds team: [email protected]
Web: www.healthymindsnetwork.org
College Mental Health Research Symposium:
March 8-9, 2016 in Ann Arbor (please join us!)
