A note to our listeners, this episode contains mentions of suicide.

It's depression mode. I'm John Moe. I'm glad you're here.

The annual Healthy Minds survey released in 2023 was taken by 90,000 college students.

And the results were pretty bleak.

Over 60% of students met the criteria for a mental health disorder.

The survey said 44% report depression symptoms, 37% for anxiety, 15% were considering suicide, which was the highest

rate in the 15 years they've been doing the survey. You can look at other recent surveys and

studies, and the numbers vary. Sometimes they're a lot worse. Some point to a little improvement

since the darkest days of the pandemic, but not a lot of

improvement. The research really all points in the same direction. We're in a mental health crisis

in America. We've talked about that before. People are suffering and there isn't nearly enough

available care for them. And things are especially rough for people in their late teens and early 20s,

the kind of folks who are often college students.

Dr. Jesse Gold is the chief wellness officer for the University of Tennessee System

and an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

Dr. Jesse Gold, welcome to Depression Mode.

Thanks for having me.

You've been working in academia for a while.

You've been observing this ugly trend firsthand.

First off, when did it start to get so bad with college students and mental health?

The way I think about it is it's probably always been bad, but maybe we're talking about it a little bit more.

You know, people are more comfortable talking about mental health.

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