Healthy Minds Survey
The Healthy Minds Network’s annual web-based survey study examines mental health, service utilization, and related issues among undergraduate and graduate students.
Every other year, students at NMU are invited to participate in the Healthy Minds Survey, or HMS, an online survey study by the Healthy Minds Network to examine mental health, service utilization, and related issues among undergraduate and graduate students. Your participation in the survey helps us see how we are doing at Northern year over year as we work to implement support for students, weather global storms like the COVID-19 pandemic, and ride the waves of a changing world and its effects on our students.
Healthy Minds 2023-2024 Findings at NMU
The broad results from data that compares Northern of today to Northern of years past confirms that we are heading in the right direction. Northern’s students, like their peers attending colleges and universities across the country and around the world, saw significant declines in many mental health markers during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, data from the most recent HMS survey tells us that we are rebounding in a significant way. This is good news.
At Northern we’re seeing an overall reduction of stigma associated with seeking mental health support, a higher level of positive mental health, and survey results trending in a positive direction with the information HMS collects. As an institution and as a community, we will continue to grow and adapt to the needs of our students and continue to care for every aspect of their wellbeing.
Services and Initiatives Developed from 2023-2024 study results
At Northern, we intend to maintain forward momentum and helpful action to ensure wellbeing is within reach for our Wildcat community. Healthy Minds Survey results are considered, along with additional surveying and data resulting from direct services provided on campus, national and regional trends, and direct feedback from our global campus community, when developing new supports or refining existing supports.
New supports that were made available as a result of HMS 23-24 survey results include:
Wellbeing Advisory Council
Multicultural Advisory Council
Sustainability Advisory Council
New collaborative protocols between Health Center, Counseling, and Consultation Services to increase accessibility.
Okanagan Charter
Since signing the Okanagan Charter in 2023, we’ve doubled down on our commitment to mental health and wellbeing at Northern.
Our plan is to share the Healthy Minds Survey results proactively and transparently, aligning with our signing of the charter, so we can all see how Northern is progressing and how we compare to our peers.
Advance research, teaching and training for health promotion knowledge and action. Contribute to health-promoting knowledge production, application, standard letting and evaluation that advance multi-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary research agendas relevant to real world outcomes, and also, ensure training, learning, teaching and knowledge exchange that will benefit the future wellbeing of our communities, societies and planet.