Report finds comprehensive approach may improve suicide prevention on college campuses

SALT LAKE CITY — Suicide is a leading cause of death in America, with nearly 50,000 people in the U.S. dying by suicide in 2022, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

With added pressures from social media influencing the younger generations to hold themselves to unrealistic standards or expectations, organizations across the nation are taking action to help protect the youth from suicidal ideation.

One nonprofit organization, the JED Foundation, has been working to prevent suicide among youth and young adults for the past 25 years.

"The JED campus program is intended to help college students evaluate their programs, policy systems and campus culture to identify where improvements can be made," said Dr. Michelle Mullen, senior vice president at the JED Foundation. "The goal is to promote suicide prevention."

JED Campus is currently used by 444 colleges and universities across the nation; Utah State University, University of Utah and Weber State University are just a few of the college campuses in Utah that use the program.

"The university takes a campuswide approach to mental health support, which is something the JED Campus program really emphasizes. This means support extends far beyond more traditional resources like our counseling center or wellness office," said Dianna Abel, executive director of student well-being at Weber State University.

Among the recommendations made by JED Campus that Weber State has implemented are resources like online therapy modules for students taking classes in particularly distressing subjects and a "purple folder" which Weber State staff and faculty can consult in order to identify a student in distress.

"Positive change often happens in the classroom because that's where you'll find students. That's why it's so important to make it really easy for faculty and staff to know how they can help and support," Abel said.

According to Mullen, JED Campus is unique in tackling the problem of mental health on college campuses because it uses a "comprehensive" approach encouraging school administrators to equip different areas of campus with skills that they can pass on to students that will ultimately improve their quality of life. Life skills the program teaches students include time management, relationship management skills, conflict resolution and stress management to create a positive impact in the lives of students.

Recently, the JED Foundation released a report that analyzes the impact of its campus program on participating college campuses. Within the report, the voices of more than 100,000 students assess how campuses have improved their approach to mental health issues in the past decade.

"We're a data-driven organization," Mullen explained. "When we see that campuses implement more recommendations from our comprehensive approach, they see greater student improvement — the more implementation recommendations are implemented, the more students flourish."

She emphasized that fighting mental health issues on a college campus doesn't end with the counseling center, and that domains like student housing and other departments should also be prepared to identify mental health issues and make the appropriate recommendations.

According to the report, college campuses that implemented the comprehensive recommendations made by JED Campus saw that students on those campuses were 25% less likely to make a suicide attempt, 13% less likely to report suicidal planning and 10% less likely to report suicidal ideation. Additionally, the report found an improvement in student retention and a decrease in anxiety on participating campuses.

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