Isolation harms the mind; inclusion helps it thrive. This social concept is exactly what Sydney Clark’s (PH ’26) research on the effects of community engagement on college student mental health emphasized.
Clark’s desire to help people served as a compassionate catalyst that inspired her to major in public health. Invested in her degree’s emphasis on disease prevention and health promotion, Clark is eager to help stop future health issues from arising in society. “It's all about looking at ways that we can keep anything from happening in the first place,” she explains. “I think it's a cool way to help not only individuals, but the whole population.”
When Clark began working with public health professor Dr. Carl Hanson, she was eager to focus her research efforts on inclusion in communities, especially since she has seen firsthand the mental health struggles endured by her peers. “Many college students struggle with their mental health, and we need to understand what helps,” Clark comments. “Our study shows that staying connected and involved in meaningful communities can play a big role in helping students thrive.” She explains that involvement in a variety of communities—like family, school, work, and church—positively affects mental health. Clark hopes to gain ground on solving the issue of growing mental health problems amongst students by analyzing whether community engagement can decrease anxiety and depression symptoms and improve overall well-being.
“It's not as black and white as I thought it was,” she shares. “Everybody's relationship with mental health is different.” With this in mind, Clark began examining past research on the effect of involvement and isolation on how mental health has affected students who are more involved in their communities. Drawing upon this research, Clark and her team examined four different domains: engagement in family, school, church, and peer groups. They then surveyed college students and asked them about their anxiety, depression, sense of individual flourishing, and how engaged they felt in these different communities. The final step was the use of statistical modeling to see how these pieces fit together.
Our study shows that staying connected and involved in meaningful communities can play a big role in helping students thrive.
Researchers found that the more engaged students were in each of those communities, the higher their individual flourishing, leading to decreased anxiety and depression. The more people were involved in their communities, whether it’s through volunteer work, social activities, or basic communal participation, group engagement with one another leads to greatly improved mental health.
Clark proposes that these findings can help students, campuses, and church communities understand how important it is to stay connected and involved. By creating more opportunities for genuine engagement, they can help students feel supported, less alone, and healthier overall.
Yet this inclusion conclusion posed another question. “So, we know that being engaged in your community is going to be better for your mental health, but how do you actually get people to be engaged in their communities?” Clark asks, thinking about the next steps. “How do you get people to participate? How do you get people to show up?” Clark thinks that extending an invitation to participate is a valid way to increase community engagement. She highlights the importance of “being the person who invites and the person being invited,” even if the activity is sometimes outside of their comfort zone.
By fostering unity within the community, Clark hopes to advance her research to promote engagement and address mental health. Beyond mental well-being, she emphasizes the spiritual dimension, focusing on the importance of being more Christlike and encouraging everyone to view others with compassion and to try to recognize struggles that are not always visible.
Clark also aims to encourage students pursuing their own projects, emphasizing, “You know more than everyone else in that room about that topic, because you studied that topic thoroughly.” With her own research Clark proves that inclusion can become not just a goal, but the very method by which communities thrive and individuals heal.