Reaching The Most Vulnerable: TARGETED MENTAL HEALTH INITIATIVES ENGAGE STUDENT POPULATIONS AT RISK

This article states interesting statistics regarding college students and their health. It states that:

1. There is a strong association between students’ health status and academic performance. Students who report having poor health have five times higher odds of reporting a D or F grade than their counterparts in excellent health. Unfortunately, health status is not distributed equally across all students on college and university campuses. 

2. Students who are unsure of their sexual orientation, bisexual students, students of color, transgender students, and students who are uninsured experience higher rates of fair or poor health. This variation in health status puts certain communities of students at higher risk of experiencing a poor academic outcome due to health. 

3. The occurrence of feeling so depressed it was difficult to function in the past year is prevalent across many student identity groups. However, sexual and gender minorities, multiracial students, and students who are uninsured suffer disproportionately high rates of feeling so depressed it was difficult to function. 

This, in particular, is important in the context of college students and energy poverty particularly in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic because due to the COVID-19 pandemic, educational access and equity have significantly decreased for marginalized colleges students who have lost the safe haven of college and have not had supplemental programs being initiated to help them.