Social Factors in the Mental Health of Young Adults: Bridging Psychological and Network Analysis

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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The central goal of this project is to produce a novel, precise, and comprehensive account of social factors in young adult mental health - using a novel combination of network nominations, ecological momentary assessment, and neuroimaging methods. To that end, the investigators will collect data from two successive classes of college undergraduates (i.e., classes of 2023 and 2024) over the course of their collegiate tenure.

Detailed Description
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The proposed work will consist of four key components. The investigators will collect data from the class of 2023 in each of their remaining years at college, producing (i) longitudinal data that will allow them to probe the long-term mental health effects of connections made during the transition to college, as well as mental health issues and resilience in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as a function of social connectedness. The investigators will leverage this rich dataset to build (ii) prospective quantitative models to predict mental health outcomes later in college based on a range of social factors measured early in college. They will further collect (iii) a longitudinal replication cohort, the class of 2024, allowing to establish the robustness of their initial findings across samples. Finally, the investigators will add (iv) a neuroimaging component to this dataset in a subset of the class of 2024. This will allow them to examine brain markers of connectedness, and add them to a prospective model, providing a novel integration across brain, behavior, and community levels of analysis, and a synthetic assessment of social factors in long-term mental health.

Official Title
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Social Factors in the Mental Health of Young Adults: Bridging Psychological and Network Analysis

Conditions
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Anxiety, Depression, Loneliness, Stress

Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: Stanford undergraduate students in the classes of 2023 and 2024, as well as all students who reside in their dorms. - Exclusion Criteria: People under the age of 18 -

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Class of 2023<br>Stanford undergraduate students who are expected to graduate in Spring of 2023 | |
| Class of 2024<br>Stanford undergraduate students who are expected to graduate in Spring of 2024 | |

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Depression | Score on self-reported depression measure: Center for Epidemiological Studies Scale - 10 item version. Range = 0 to 30. Higher scores indicate more depressive symptoms | September 2021 - May 2024 | 
| Anxiety | Score on self-reported anxiety measure: State-Trait Anxiety Inventory - 20 item version. Range = 20 to 80. Higher scores indicate more symptoms of anxiety. | September 2021 - May 2024 | 

Secondary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Loneliness | Score on self-reported loneliness measure: University of California Loneliness Scale - 8 item version. Range = 1 to 5. Higher score indicate greater feeling of loneliness. | September 2021 - May 2024 | 
| Stress | Score on self-reported stress measure: Perceived Stress Scale. Range = 1 to 3. Higher scores indicate greater feeling of stress. | September 2021 - May 2024 |