Taking mental wellness education beyond the campus: How universities can help respond to the mental health care crisis
Retrieved on:
Tuesday, May 9, 2023
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The Canadian Mental Health Association estimates that one in five Canadians will experience a mental health challenge.
Key Points:
- The Canadian Mental Health Association estimates that one in five Canadians will experience a mental health challenge.
- Mental health care can be even further delayed than physical health care.
- Increasing funding for health care may not change the landscape of mental health care.
Complicating the mental health care issue
- The government of Canada defines mental health as, “the state of your psychological and emotional well-being.” Wellness is multidimensional, often viewed comprising eight elements: emotional, physical, occupational, social, spiritual, intellectual, environmental and financial.
- A reduction in any one of these areas can decrease well-being and quality of life.
- However, with misinformation proliferating on media outlets, it is imperative that the information the public receives is evidence-based.
The education of wellness
- Researchers have also noted the importance of education as a crucial aspect of public health action.
- However, everyone can benefit from wellness research if it is delivered in an accessible format that is affordable.
- Universities are ideally positioned to not only create knowledge but to broker knowledge by delivering science-based wellness information to the general public.
- Courses consisted of 12 hours of instruction over six weeks, using a virtual platform in real time, with no pre-requisites.
- Course size was limited to 20 people per course to facilitate discussion and engagement with the material.
- Participants ranged in age from 16 to 75 years old from various backgrounds, and a range of experience with educational institutions (i.e., ranging from some high-school level education to doctoral level degrees).
- However, they did not report an increase in mental health, which may highlight the difference in these two concepts.
A path forward
- There is interest from community members to take these courses with course content having the ability to improve well-being.
- Moreover, by students in these courses sharing the knowledge learned, well-being is passed on to others thereby creating a “more well” community.