A Harvard University panel, titled “Innovating on Campus: Supporting Mental Health of Students of Color During COVID-19 and Beyond,” recommended ways to promote the mental health and emotional well-being of young people of color — 45% of whom make up the undergraduate population.
The forum, sponsored by Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health in partnership with The Steve Fund and jointly with GBH News, streamed a live virtual panel on Tuesday focusing on how COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted students of color.
Expert panelists included Marvin Krislov, the president of Pace University; Dr. Meeta Kumar, director of counseling services at the University of Chicago; Dr. Tabbye Chavous, director of National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) at the University of Michigan; and Dr. Josephine Kim, a lecturer at Harvard University. Phillip Martin, senior investigative reporter for GBH center for investigative reporting, was the moderator.
“If students of color don’t see themselves reflected on the walls they have to navigate, [in] the curriculum and the authors who wrote the materials they have to read for class … and [in] the food that’s in the cafeteria,” this can negatively impact their overall mental health, said Kim. “If their identity and collective strength and resilience as well as their historical trauma [are] never acknowledged and recognized, then all of this points to a lack of inclusion and poses a threat to the mental health of students of color.”
Drawing from The Steve Fund Crisis Response Task Force report published this fall, Blacks and Latinos report higher rates of depression, anxiety and trauma-related symptoms as a result of the pandemic than do Whites. Analysis from The Steve Fund and Healthy Minds Network further reveals that among students of color using mental health services, 70% found mental health services more difficult to access since the pandemic.
Thus, “investments in infrastructure” like “having enough support available and having representation of staff is critically important,” said Kumar. Multifaceted services that break barriers and help students seek guidance and understanding about their behavior should be considered, she said.
According to a student mental health survey in September from Active Minds, a nonprofit organization supporting mental health awareness and education for students, almost 75% of students at the undergraduate and graduate level reported their mental health has either worsened, worsened somewhat or worsened significantly since the beginning of the pandemic.
