Information

In 2024 to 2025, 37% of students reported that they suffer from moderate to severe depression, while 32% reported moderate to severe anxiety symptoms. In recent times there has been an increase in reported mental health concerns among students attending college. It has affected college students, students of color, faculty who work with these students, and students who are part of one or more minority groups. There are many ways administration, staff, and faculty members are trying to help students. They do this by creating a safe area for anyone, but sometimes it isn’t enough, especially with the stigma surrounding mental health. Mental health can affect people in many ways; It’s especially seen in college students and has negatively affected them. 

Mental health is, as defined by the World Health Organization, “a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.” Unfortunately, as of 2025, there are more than a billion people globally who live with some kind of mental health condition. In a separate statistic,  33.8% of college aged people are diagnosed with a psychological disorder, such as anxiety or depression. In 2022 ,only 34 - 36% of students received treatment for a mood disorder, and in a separate st8

dy it was found that 41% of college students think that most people feel that others would look down on someone who has accepted mental health help.  Some fortunate news is that in 2024 - 2025, 61% of college students were screened positive for anxiety or depression treatment. Unfortunately, that is still 61% of students who had anxiety or depression that needed to be treated. 

This can also affect people who belong to a minority. Suicide was once the 3rd leading death among black individuals and 40% of black students reported mental health symptoms. The faculty who help college students also have reported mental health problems, especially due to the fact that students rely on them for support, but no one to support them. Faculty reported that they felt unprepared for the role of student support. 

There are ways that help can be implemented for these individuals. One of the ways you can help is by creating a supportive and welcoming environment. Being aware of help hotlines can also be important for these individuals. One such number is the suicide and crisis hotline, just dial 988. There may be some local hotlines you can use too, just look up your city’s local crisis number. 

Footnotes:

 Aluri, James, Ashley M. Witmer, Susanna Lewis, et al. 2026. “Sociodemographic and  Mental Health Characteristics Associated with Participating in a Digital Mental Health Screening Platform on College Campuses.” Journal of American College Health 74 (7): 2024–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2026.2629343.

Branch, Kathryn A., Carly M. Hilinski-Rosick, Amanda Isabel Osuna, and Rachel E. Severson. 2026. “When Students Share: Faculty Experiences with Mental Health Challenges inside and Outside the Classroom.” Journal of American College Health 74 (3): 823–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2025.2555597.

Buddington, Leslie. 2025. “Growth Mindset, Resilience, College Student Retention and Engagement in Preventative Mental Health Activities: A Focus on Vulnerable Groups.” Journal of American College Health 73 (10): 3985–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2025.2464769.

Fortson, Kennicia, Karen E. Nielsen, Natalie N. Watson-Singleton, et al. 2026. “Barriers to Mental Health Help-Seeking Intentions among Black College Students: Examining the Role of Discrimination.” Journal of American College Health 74 (6): 1734–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2025.2607137.

Witmer, Ashley M., Carlos Aguirre, Susanna Lewis, et al. 2026. “The Relationship between Stressors and Seeking a Referral to Mental Health Care among College Students Using an Online Screening Platform.” Journal of American College Health 74 (7): 2188–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2026.2649523.

Choices I Made

One of the reasons I chose this topic is because of my own experiences with negative mental health. I've had trouble since my elementary school days and was officially diagnosed with anxiety in seventh grade. However, at this time, I had no idea what anxiety was, so knowing what was making me feel terrible didn’t actually help in making me feel better. By the time I got to high school, I wasn’t any better. I had to transfer to different high schools four times. I only started seeing a change in mood, behavior, and habits in my junior year of high school, when I transferred to a school specifically for kids who needed extra help academically, emotionally, or behaviorally. Learning about why my brain and body does what it does, and being shown how to help myself was the push I needed to do better emotionally.   

The Images I incorporated into my design would be the silhouette of a human head to obviously represent a person. Another important image I put in was a brain; It’s made up of different fabric types to represent different parts of the brain. An adjacent reason I put on different fabrics is because different people all feel differently. No two people have the same experience with mental health, but we can have similar experiences. That is another reason I choose different fabrics, some fabrics are the same but have a different shape, and some are completely different from the others. 

I embroidered the words “mental health matters”, for obvious reasons, into the panel, but also sewed thoughts people may have when experiencing negative mental health on the sides of the panel. One part of the panel that has changed from my original idea was the brain. Originally I wanted to have the brain be one piece of fabric, but it wasn't going as well as I wanted, so I decided to use multiple pieces to represent differences instead. I thought It would also be cool to put thoughts into the brain itself, but the words were too small to read so instead I put it as the side frame of the piece. I think it brings the piece together more. One last thing I changed from the original idea was the fact I wanted a bigger piece of fabric to cover the actual piece to show that sometimes people hide how they are feeling and you never actually know what someone is going through. I was worried about the interactive piece though because I wasn’t actually sure how other people would touch and interact with it due to it being behind a table. 

                       Works Cited

Aluri, James, Ashley M. Witmer, Susanna Lewis, et al. “Sociodemographic and Mental Health Characteristics Associated with Participating in a Digital Mental Health Screening Platform on College Campuses.” Journal of American College Health 74, no. 7 (2026): 2024–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2026.2629343.

Branch, Kathryn A., Carly M. Hilinski-Rosick, Amanda Isabel Osuna, and Rachel E. Severson. “When Students Share: Faculty Experiences with Mental Health Challenges inside and Outside the Classroom.” Journal of American College Health 74, no. 3 (2026): 823–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2025.2555597.

Buddington, Leslie. “Growth Mindset, Resilience, College Student Retention and Engagement in Preventative Mental Health Activities: A Focus on Vulnerable Groups.” Journal of American College Health 73, no. 10 (2025): 3985–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2025.2464769.

Fortson, Kennicia, Karen E. Nielsen, Natalie N. Watson-Singleton, et al. “Barriers to Mental Health Help-Seeking Intentions among Black College Students: Examining the Role of Discrimination.” Journal of American College Health 74, no. 6 (2026): 1734–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2025.2607137.

“Mental Health.” World Health Organization, October 8, 2025. https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/theme-details/GHO/mental-health.

Witmer, Ashley M., Carlos Aguirre, Susanna Lewis, et al. “The Relationship between Stressors and Seeking a Referral to Mental Health Care among College Students Using an Online Screening Platform.” Journal of American College Health 74, no. 7 (2026): 2188–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2026.2649523.