About This Project
Understanding of the effect of environmental factors may allow us to design more effective physical environments to deliver health messages for specific populations. Understanding of the effects of message content (anxiety-relatedness) suggests that we should consider the anxiety associated with a health issue when designing health messages that would enhance message elaboration by considering the environmental (noise) condition.
Ask the Scientists
Join The DiscussionWhat is the context of this research?
44% of college students in US report symptoms of depression. Relative to older adults, young adults (18-29 years) are more reluctant to seek professional psychiatric help for depression although they have one of the highest prevalence of depression relative to other age groups. The reluctance among young adults to engage in psychiatric help-seeking (PHS) for depression presents a significant barrier for early detection and may result in poor mental health treatments and outcomes. While depression symptoms are often transient and may be dismissed as a stressful period that happens to every student, it is critical for colleges to provide well-designed and targeted PHS information to raise awareness of depression, and encourage PHS behaviors.
What is the significance of this project?
An improved understanding of the influence of environmental and/or psychological attributes may allow practitioners to design more effective physical environments for the delivery of health messages targeted at specific populations. Also, an improved understanding of the effects of message content (i.e., anxiety-relatedness) suggests that communicators should consider the anxiety associated with a health issue when constructing health messages promoting help-seeking behaviors and/or to construct messages that would facilitate message elaboration by considering the existing environmental condition (e.g., a low versus high noise space).
What are the goals of the project?
The study will be conducted from October 15 to December 16, 2017 in a simulated setting. Subjects will be asked to be seated in the simulated study area and will be told to complete a personality test which takes approximately 30 minutes. In this time, subjects will be exposed to the noise condition (students talking sound effect at 30 dB or 75 dB) and the message condition (poster featuring anxiety-unrelated/anxiety related psychiatric help seeking [PHS] information). No special measure will be used to direct subjects’ attention to the PHS message. After 30 minutes, subjects will fill up a survey which assess their general anxiety and psychiatric help-seeking intentions. Each study session will be approximately 45 minutes.
Budget
25% of college students in the U.S. suffer from some mental disorder, including depression. Additionally, 44% of college students in the U.S. report symptoms of depression. In particular, the emotional health of college freshmen is concerning. For this research, we will only recruit a representative sample of freshmen (n = 240) and we will use existing (although slightly modified) posters urging students to seek mental health help in times of crisis. We will also look at noise conditions that is uniquely found in a college environment (i.e., loud chattering sound among students). Thus, there is a great potential for our research findings to be applicable to various collegiate environments.
Project Timeline
Research will be conducted between October 15 to December 16, 2017. Each study session will be approximately 45 minutes. A total of 240 sessions will be required.
Dec 16, 2017
Completion of data collection
Meet the Team
Team Bio
Mardelle Shepley is the dean of the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis and Associate Director in the Cornell Institute for Health Futures at Cornell.
Jeff Niederdeppe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell. His research examines the mechanisms and effects of mass media campaigns, strategic health messages, and news coverage in shaping health behavior, health disparities, and social policy.
Jeffrey Neo
Hi! I am a doctoral student in Human Behavior and Design in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell University. I have worked in four countries (Singapore, Hong Kong, India, and the U.S.) for employers and health systems including Cornell, Johns Hopkins, and the Health Sciences Authority of Singapore. I have a special interest in healthcare design research, particularly in evidence-based design. For my doctoral research, I seek to examine and develop new innovative strategies to understand how the interaction between communication, psychological, and environmental design attributes may influence audiences' attention, perception, and behavioral intentions when subjected to health-risk information in healthcare environments. My research philosophy is to incorporate insights and expertise from interdisciplinary fields such as evidence-based design, human factors, communication, bioethics, and psychology, and then to translate this research into both policy and clinical practice to improve patient outcomes in order to generate advances in public health and implementation science. For my scholarly contributions to the field of healthcare design, I was awarded the 2017 Joel Polsky Academic Achievement Award by the American Society of Interior Designers, the 2016 American Academy of Healthcare Interior Designers/Steelcase Fellowship, and the 2015 International Student of the Year and Western New York Scholarship by the International Facility Management Association. I also had the honor to serve as the degree marshal for the Cornell University Graduate School during the University commencement in 2016.
Lab Notes
Nothing posted yet.
Additional Information
Project Backers
- 0Backers
- 0%Funded
- $0Total Donations
- $0Average Donation