General Trends in the Utilization of Mental Health Resources Within A Central Ohio School District

In recent years mental health has become a prominent topic in society. Mental health has often been ignored or integrated very minimally within society. However, one place in society constantly finds itself within the spotlight and forefront of mental health, educational institutions. These places have always been a prevalent part of this field due to their ability to help society at large through primary and secondary prevention. Primary prevention involves providing interventions to stop mental health issues from arising in the first place. This form of prevention teaches students healthy habits for their mental health and helps prevent illnesses. Secondary prevention involves preventing the further growth of mental health issues through prevention after the issue has already been diagnosed. Both prevention methods are utilized across the broad spectrum of students schools carry. Due to this broad spectrum, schools have been the grounds for many famous studies conducted by many famous scientists. In recent years, more and more money has been put into furthering mental health resources at schools. Legislation such as the Mental Health Services Grant Program provided 144 million to schools for mental health resources. However, the question becomes, how are these mental health resources being utilized? This correlational study aims to address the current gap in research for a need for data that is not diluted due to many confounding variables and provides information on trends of utilization of resources provided by school districts. To accomplish this we utilized vast surveys with each high school's Ohio State University clinician and Social Worker. This study collected responses from each staff member each time they met with a student on topics discussed and general demographics. This data was finally analyzed and tested to find general trends within the central Ohio school district. Some of the major findings and trends included that sophomores are most likely to go to the staff for help, the number of students that made a certain number of staff visits decreases exponentially for each increasing visit, women are more likely to go for help, and Caucasians are most likely to go for mental health. Further analysis by the school’s OSU Clicican and Social worker revealed more data such as Asians almost always are the least represented in mental health cases despite their proportion of the student body. Further anxiety and stress are the most commonly discussed topics between staff and students. This data provides a basic understanding of the relationship between mental health and high school students. This could be the gateway to the effective application of solutions presented in primary and secondary prevention studies. Furthermore, a better understanding of how mental health issues affect the student body can result in more efficient utilization of funding and resources by school districts and allow for more targeted interventions. Further research could be conducted on how mental health affects high school students who are first-generation immigrants compared to those not. This could provide insight into how culture and societal norms impact the mental health of developing minds.