Mental health has long been a taboo topic, but with the help of education and awareness efforts the stigma is beginning to fade.
More and more college students are seeking out their campus counseling centers, as Brian Locke, executive director of the Center for Collegiate Mental Health, wrote in this week’s Focus on Research column.
By Ben Locke
Beginning in 1949, a week in May was promoted as Mental Health Awareness Week — which eventually became Mental Health Awareness Month. The goal was — and still is — to educate the public about the signs, symptoms and treatments as well as the positive lifestyle choices that lead to mental health.
An estimated 1 in 5 Americans will be affected by a mental health condition in their lifetime, according to the National Alliance of Mental Illness. And the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation shows that when compared to other health risks, mental illness is responsible for approximately 30 percent of all lost life and productivity for Americans aged 15 to 24, an age range that includes the majority of U.S. college students.
Continue reading Focus on research: More college students seeking mental health help
Did you know that Penn State’s Center for Concussion Research and Service offers baseline concussion testing?
Many contact sports leagues — from junior high and high school sports teams to the NFL — require their athletes to undergo baseline testing before the season begins. Establishing a baseline is important so that doctors can test against it should the athlete experience a traumatic brain injury, or concussion, during the season. Concussion testing can be mentally draining, whether a person is concussed or not. Continue reading Establishing a baseline
By Michael Berkman and Zachary Baumann
In an election year notable for the success of “outsider candidates,” Pennsylvania confirmed that the party establishment has a much stronger hold on the Democratic than it does the Republican Party.
Pennsylvania Democrats participated in three notable statewide races: for president, for senator and to replace Kathleen Kane as attorney general. As we saw, in all three cases, the establishment candidate won by a significant margin.
Continue reading Focus on research: PA primaries offer microcosm of unusual election year
By Nancy Tuana
There is increasing agreement that human activities are resulting in significant changes in the global climate. The NASA website on climate change provides a snapshot of these changes.
Global temperatures have gone up an average of 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880. The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998, with last year, 2015, ranked as the warmest on record. These temperatures have contributed to rising sea levels due both to increasing ocean temperatures and the accelerated melting of glaciers and ice sheets. These changes are fueling altered weather patterns such as precipitation changes resulting in droughts in some regions and flooding in others, as well as increasing the intensity of extreme weather events such as hurricanes.
If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unchecked, the effects could result in serious disruptions to agriculture, flooding of the world’s coastal cities, changes in species migrations, and even extinction of some plants and animals. Continue reading Focus on research: Does climate change affect genders differently?
