Are mental health initiatives in Higher Education evidence based? 

Researcher cautions against initiatives to reduce student suicide that lack evidence

Universities are implementing policies to reduce suicide among students and improve mental health with little evidence that they will make any difference, a researcher has warned.

A total of 5821 suicides were reported in the UK in 2017, 10.1 deaths per 100 000 population, a proportion among the lowest since records began in 1981.1 About one in 60 deaths by suicide in 2017 (95) were carried out by a student in higher education.12

Data also show that the proportion of university students declaring a mental health condition has more than tripled in recent years, from 0.8% in 2010-11 to 2.5%

Is there a crisis in student mental health?

​www.insight.mrc.ac.uk/2018/09/13/is-there-a-crisis-in-student-mental-health/#more-8424
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Starting university should be a time for having fun and making new friends. So why are we seeing record referral rates to student counselling services and reports of student suicides in the news? And what can universities do to help? Dr Nicola Byrom, Lecturer in Psychology at King’s College London, is using UK Research and Innovation ‘Network Plus’ funding to find out.
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Type ‘Student mental health’ into a search of UK news and you’ll be hit by headlines referring to: ‘The ticking time-bomb’, ‘Students being let down’, warnings that ‘problems are rising’. If you read these stories in isolation, you’d be forgiven for thinking that we’re in the depths of a crisis in student mental health.

UK Research and Innovation announces funding.

£8 million investment in new mental health research networks
6 Sep 2018

Eight new networks designed to broaden mental health research have been announced by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) today.

The networks cover a diverse range of topics, such as exploring the impact of loneliness and social isolation on mental health, improving the life expectancy of people with severe mental ill health and promoting young people's mental health in a digital world. They will bring together experts from different fields from the arts, humanities and sciences to build capacity and lay the foundations for new, multidisciplinary approaches to mental health research.
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IoPPN researchers awarded over £2m to lead new mental health networks

Researchers from the Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London have been awarded over £2 million in funding to lead two new Mental Health Networks. The networks are two of eight Mental Health Networks announced today by UK Research and Innovation.