Dr. Brian Hainline, NCAA Chief Medical Officer, hosts NCAA Research staff Lydia Bell, Director of Research and Policy, and Kelsey Gurganus-Wright, Associate Director of Research on Student-Athlete Well-Being and Experiences to review findings from the 2023 Student-Athlete Health and Wellness Study as it relates to student-athlete mental and physical health, safety and performance. The NCAA Student-Athlete Health and Wellness Study is a national study of college student-athletes conducted in 2022-23 in collaboration with campus faculty athletics representatives. More than 23,000 student-athletes participated in the Association-wide study. This study examined student-athlete mental health concerns and peer support, sleep behaviors, attitudes toward weight and body image, nutrition, competition and injury history and substance use experiences.
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Hi everyone my name is Brian hanline the NCA chief medical officer and welcome to another SSI Spotlight session recall that we had five previous Spotlight series sessions on mental health and two on concussion today’s Spotlight is on student athlete health and wellness study findings so the information in today’s session is
Regarding findings from the first student athlete health and wellness study and this is actually going to provide a foundation for subsequent Spotlight sessions that are going to continue to focus on Mental Health but also address other issues such as canabo pain management sleep and related areas we have two special guests today
Lydia Bell the director of research and policy at the NCAA and Kelsey ganis right who’s the associate director of research on student athlete well-being and experience iences they’re going to take you through this study with a slide deck and provide an overview of how it was conducted so really looking forward
To hearing from Lydia and Kelsey and thanks so much for joining us thank you so much Dr hanline and thank you all for for tuning in today to to hear um some findings on this really important study that we’re excited to share so historically our our research team has partnered with faculty
Athletics representatives to gain insight into student athlete health and well-being through a range of national surveys the 10th iteration of the NCAA substance use study was planned for 2021 but due to the pandemic we decided to postpone the study during this time in collaboration with our NCAA Sports Science Institute teammates we
Identified the need to conduct a more comprehensive student athlete health and wellness study and to accommodate this survey in the rotation of our studies um we pulled key items from the substance use study uh and those were subsumed within the survey instrument that we used the paper survey was administered
On campuses by faculty Athletics reps during the last Academic Year and we had more than 23,000 student athletes participate in the study today Dr Bell and I are going to show you findings related to student athlete substance use Mental Health sleep youth sport specialization injury and overall wellness support we’ll also
Share with you at the end where you can access these data so starting with student athlete substance use in some positive News student athletes have shown a significant decrease over the years in alcohol use which is right in line with the larger Trend that we are seeing in
This age group of college students generally most recently 72% of student athletes reported using alcohol within the last year the rate does remain higher among women’s sports at 76% compared to men’s sports at 68% even more positive news with with Ben drink beninge drinking uh beninge drinking is defined as women having four
Or more drinks and men having five or more drinks in a single sitting the percent of student athlete Ben drinkers has dropped blows from 55% in 2009 to 35% in this study and when we compare student athletes to college student to the college student population broadly we typically see that
Alcohol use as well as other substance use is lower for NCA athletes still important to recognize here that alcohol is the most used substance among this age group the student body data in the middle is from the 2023 American college Health association’s National College Health assessment and the data on the
Far right is from the monitoring the future study out of the University of Michigan you’ll see this table a few more times throughout the presentation as we cover various um drug drug categories so the use of most tobacco and nicotine products in the past year is down compared to Prior studies
Notable decreases seen here in the use of cigars which is that green line green line down to 12% spit tobacco in that light blue line down to 10% hookah in the orange line down to 4% in student athlete cigarette use has remained steady since 2013 but you can see here
That vaping nicotine did see a substantial increase which is right in line with what we are seeing in this generation of students broadly the student athlete rate of vaping is below the overall college student rate reported in the monitoring the future study cigarette use is also lower among student athletes
More positive news here with spit tobacco where we have historically seen significant concerns in several men’s sports baseball wrestling men’s lacrosse and men’s ice hockey have consistently had high rates as high as 40 to 50% depending on the study year however with the exception of ice hockey which
Remains at the top currently uh we are seeing big drops in those those Sports in this study report rates of marijuana use by methods of inhalation or ingestion are comparable to 2017 with a slight increase among women’s sports student athletes when we compare past year marijuana use to student body data
Student athletes are much lower at 26% compared to 38% from the acj study and 41% from the monitoring the future study and then in terms of divisional differences division 3 student athletes have consistently been the highest standers of marijuana or cannabis most recently at 30% but division one student
Athletes have narrowed that Gap increasing from just under 18% in 2017 up to 23% currently and then when we look by sport on the men’s side lacrosse swimming and ice hockey were the highest users all with onethird or more reporting use in the past year and on the women’s side onethird
More reported use in rowing and ice hockey in the past year and then in this study in the 2017 study we asked how student athletes were consuming marijuana or other cannabis products we found that used by smoking vaping or any other method of inhalation
Has been steady at 23 to at the 23 to 24% range um but there was an increase in the use of ingestible products in the past year up from 11% in 2017 to 17% currently we also saw a large increase among those using synthetic marijuana products I think the most important
Takeaway here is that while overall use rates haven’t changed much much for student athletes since 2017 it may be that users are enjoying more forms of the drug rather than those Alternative forms leading to more student athlete users much of these shifts could also be tied to increased access to new types of
Products so when we look at use as a function of state law we see higher rates among student athletes attending college in states where it’s fully legal for recreation or medical use as high as 43% of student athletes reported using marijuana in states where it’s fully
Legal 35% in states where it’s legal for medical use only and 28% among those in states where it’s not legal sh gears here to some more positive news from the study we are seeing a downward Trend in the reported use of narcotic pain meds like vicadin oxycoton and
Other opioids both with and without a prescription in the last decade those using pain meds with a prescription are down from a high of 18% to just under uh 6% and use without a prescription is down from a high of nearly 6% to under 2% rates for all men’s sports are six 6%
Are below now most notable decreases from 2017 are in Lacrosse down from 177% to 5% and ice hockey down from 133% to 3% rates for all women’s sports are 8% or below largest drops among gymnastic student athletes down from 18% to 8% and ice hockey down from 133% to 4%
More good news here in terms of medication misuse we are also seeing a downward Trend in the use of ADHD stimulants like Aderall Concerta and others without a prescription down from about 8% in 2017 to 2% in this study prescription use of stimulants has remained fairly steady so shifting gears here to mental
Health findings we’re seeing that mental health concerns for student a generally have improved since 2020 especially in terms of sleep difficulties loneliness sadness and loss but we are still seeing relatively high levels this side shows rates of mental health concerns among men’s sports student athletes the data on the far
Right were collected during the last Academic Year from this study the three columns in the middle are from the co9 well-being studies we administered online shortly following the onset of covid-19 in April of 2020 6 months later in October of 2020 and then finally again in October of
2021 since 2021 the most notable decrease was in the number of men who felt overwhelmed by everything constantly or almost every day down from 25% to 177% notable decrease also in the percent of men who felt mental mentally exhausted down from 22% to 16% and then on the women’s side mental
Health concerns across the board look very similar to the rates we saw in 2021 most recently we found that a little less than half of women felt overwhelmed constantly or almost every day onethird felt mentally exhausted and just under 30% felt overwhelming anxiety and experienced sleep difficulties over the
Course of the four surveys women’s rates of mental exhaustion overwhelming anxiety and those who felt so depressed it was difficult to function have remained relatively unchanged and then compared side side by side we see that women consistently report higher rates of concern than men and in many cases two to three times
Higher in terms of other disparities mental health struggles continue to be highest among demographic subgroups commonly displaying higher rates of mental distress including student athletes of color and those identifying AS lgbtq Plus so here I wanted draw your attention to some of the most striking differences queer Spectrum student
Athletes this group includes any participant who self-identified as gay lesbian bisexual pansexual queer questioning or another identity rates of feeling overwhelmed mentally exhausted anxious and so on are roughly Two Times Higher across the board for student athletes identifying on the queer Spectrum compared to rates of student athletes identifying as
Straight and then when we look by gender identity we had 148 participants who identified as either transgender non-binary gender queer or multiple gender identities uh we see the highest rates of mental health concerns in this group one half or more felt overwhelmed and mentally exhausted constantly or almost every day over 40% experienced
Sleep difficulties and 30% or more felt overwhelming anxiety or sadness we asked student athletes what factors were most negatively impacting their mental health in the month before the survey student athletes noted academics planning for the future and financial worries as the top factors negatively impacting their mental health
Comparing by sport gender we see high endorsement for women’s sports student athletes across the board but it’s worth noting here that those first two factors AC academics and plan for the future were 15 points higher um for women as compared to the men’s side also noteworthy are the differences and
Factors related to sport or team like coach relationships were seven points higher um on the women’s side and the overall team environment 10 points higher and then just shifting gears uh one more time to sleep for me um we can’t overstate in terms of of overall well-being how important sleep is to
Physical and mental health data from this study suggests that we have a lot of work to do in this area nearly one half of student athletes reported zero to in the past week where they got enough sleep that they felt rested when they woke up one third reported getting
Restful sleep on four to five days and another 20% reported getting restful sleep almost every day men’s sports reported more days of restful sleep than women and showed a notable increase in the percent who reported getting restful sleep on six to seven days in the past
Week up from 19% in 2019 to 25% currently here you see physical and mental functioning as it relates to restful sleep we see that those student athletes who reported 0 to three days of restful sleep in the past week are much more likely to report feeling tired from
Physical and mental demands of their Sport and less likely to feel that they are performing up to their ability of those student athletes reported getting six to seven days of restful sleep in the past week 57% believe that they were performing up to their ability compared to just 40% in the zero to3
Group and then in terms of poor sleep behaviors women’s sports are higher than men’s sports across the board in four or more days in the past week so over half the week more than 60% of women reported feeling tired or dragged out during the day compared to just over 40% for men
Onethird of women had to go to bed due to exhaustion compared to about one quarter of men and one quarter of women reported having had a hard time falling asleep compared to 19% for men so I will stop here now and turn it over to Dr Bell to discuss some of our
Next areas of findings thanks so much Kelsey really appreciate it um we really wanted to look at for our student athletes um you know when did they all begin playing their Sport and when did they specialize in their sport um so what you see here
In this data um really in the dark blue is our student athletes who began playing their sport at the age of six or younger um this is for our men’s sports athletes across all three divisions and you can see you know for some of our athletes in baseball ice hockey soccer
Over three quarters of those student athletes began playing before they were even by the time they were six um we also have quite a few student athletes if you combine both that dark blue and the orange who’ve been competing in their sport since they were below the
Age of 10 so really high rates of participation across the board if we go to the next slide um we can see the same data for women so again calling your attention to that dark blue and the orange um in many of our women’s sports you know over 90% began um competing in
Their sport by the time that they were 10 um looking at soccer gymnastics um near 90% again in softball almost 90% in ice hockey and basketball so really for many of our athletes they have been engaging in their sport since a very young age but I think the next
Slide is really um and I think Dr hanline could also you know talk a little bit about this too but you know we’re really interested in when our student athletes specialize in their Sport and when we mean when we talk about specializing what we’re talking about is really dropping all other
Sports to focus on their on one specific sport the sport that they’re playing in college um and why age 12 um is because you know we know that for those athletes that specialize by the age of 12 they are more likely um to report not only mental burnout in their sport um but
They may be more likely to also experience um some overuse injuries which is really why that again that age of 12 is what we’re prompted to kind of examine um and what you can see here again these are our our men’s sports athletes across um all three divisions
Um but we have about two-thirds of our student athletes in men’s soccer um who are specialized by the age of 12 the highest of all of our sports but about half in ice hockey and Tennis are also specializing by that age um we do see some variation by division in terms of
These data with some of our division one student athletes slightly more likely to specialize by the age of 12 but in general these numbers are fairly consistent across the three divisions in terms of our women gymnastics certainly stands out here um but if we think about you know all the
Times we spent watching the Olympic so we we know it’s one of our our younger Sports um but almost 90% of our student athletes who are gymnast have specialized by the age of 12 um but over half in soccer swimming and Diving and Tennis um for our women’s sports student
Athletes so we have many of our athletes um you know who are taking who are making the decision to specialize by the time they are 12 when we asked about specialization part of what we were interested in is you know might this relate to injury for our student athletes um we were
Interested in not only injury um during college but also whether or not they had faced um major injuries prior to coming to college and when we talk about major injury the way that we Define it for our student athletes who are taking the survey is it’s a sport related injury
That requires surgery hospitalization or more than a month away from training and competition so that’s how we’re that’s how we’re defining major sport related injuries um as you can see you know in many of our Sports um actually and over more than half of our men’s sports um ice hockey wrestling soccer lacrosse
Football baseball and basketball over half of our student athletes have faced at least one major injury prior to coming to college um you can see you know in some of our Sports um ice hockey and wrestling we have um you know almost 20% of those student athletes who have
Faced three or more injuries um but really across the board many of our student athletes um have faced at least one injury prior to coming to college at the same time you know thinking about our for our student athletes um how does how might this also relate to their
Injuries during college we’re going to look specifically at those who are in their junior year and above um but we also see um you know the same some of those sports that also stood out for us in in terms of high school um injury reports spe wrestling um certainly um we
Can see a lot of our student athletes also facing major um major sport related injuries during college and again we we defined it in the exact same way so a surgery that a a injury that is um defined by surgery hospitalization or at least a month away from training or
Competition um so you can see for many of our student athletes over half in wrestling basketball and football and also track and field um we have you know many of our student aets facing um at least one major injury um while they’re in college by the time they’re a
Junior for our women’s sports athletes um gymnastics always stands out to me here with 40 1% of our women’s gymnast gymnasts reporting that they have faced at least three or more major sport rated injuries even before coming to college um but over half of our student athletes
Reporting at least one injury in um gymnastics soccer basketball and softball and just under half in track and field as well when we look at college for those student athletes again really looking at those Juniors and above um gymnastics is still here um in terms of the highest rates of injury um
We also see over half of our women’s basketball student athletes facing at least one major injury um during college and over just over half in trenfield as well um so really um for us we were really interested in you know what was the intersection if any um in those who
Had faced um injuries prior to coming to college and how might that relate to the injury that they faced during college um and what you see here um for our student athletes who had at least one precol major injury um they they were more likely to also report facing a major
Injury during college almost twice the rate in men’s soccer um and a little about one and a half times the rate um of our women’s soccer student athletes um so you know this really showing a relationship between those who had faced a pre-ol injury and then again facing an
Injury in college we have no um indication that whether or not it was the same sort of injury so we may not be a reinjuring um but our student athletes who were injured pre-ol were more likely to report injury during college as well we also took a look at men’s and women’s
Basketball um just to see if this relationship continued to hold and it did um again our our student athletes who had faced an injur an injury prior to college were more likely to report facing an injury a major injury um while in college as well in both men’s and women’s
Basketball this study in you know in addition to examining our student athletes mental health and substance use we were also really interested in um weight and body image for our student athletes um I think one of the most um you know for me one of the most telling
Questions that I always want to point people’s attention to is right here in the middle of your screen um the question is hey you know for our student athletes how are you describing your weight um and about two-thirds of our student athletes um in both men’s and women’s sports indicate that they are
About the right weight for their sport however when we ask them about about their weight and what they’re trying to to do in terms of maintaining their weight um I I think it may um it may pique your interest to find that our even though about two-thirds of our
Student athletes think that they are the right weight for their sport um we still see 43% of our men’s sports athletes saying that they are trying to gain weight um so regardless of how they’re currently feeling their in terms of the size for their sport there are a
Disproportionate number of of our men Sports athletes trying to gain weight um and you see almost the opposite story for our women’s sports athletes so even though about 2third say that they are about the right weight for their sport we still have almost half of our women’s sports student athletes trying to lose
Weight during the time of this survey we also asked um you know taking that same question and looking at how does it you know are do we see anything different in terms of sport um you can see for our sports that are most likely to indicate that they are trying to gain
Weight um men’s basketball stands out and football um with about half of those stud student athletes trying to gain weight I think your eye may also be drawn to our men’s wrestling student athletes which is the only sport where the men um are more likely to indicate
That they’re trying to lose weight as compared to trying to gain weight for our women’s sports student athletes um almost across the board you know we see those very high um dark blue bars of our women’s sports athletes um trying to lose weight particularly in um soccer tennis lacrosse and golf the one
Sport where women are more likely to report wanting to gain weight um is our women’s basketball student athletes but still that’s less than 20% of the student athletes in the sample we also asked our student athletes about their body image um you know questions like I think I have a
Good body I’m happy with my current weight and I like what I look like in pictures and as you can see across the board men are more likely to endorse agreeing or strongly agreeing to the statements that I just read to you um over two-thirds of men think that they
Have a good body compared to less than half of our women’s sports student athletes um over half of men’s sports athletes are happy with their current weight compared to just about a third of our women’s sports athletes um and also you know only less than a third of our
Women sports athletes like what they look like in pictures as compared to nearly 60% of our men’s sports athletes nutritional habits for our student athletes um you know I think we expect that many of our student athletes into General are trying very hard um to be they they’re very conscientious about
Their diet and and nutrition has as it relates to their Sport and you can see that kind of play out here with over half of our student athletes saying that they generally try to have a healthy diet um we do find that men are more
Likely to make an effort to eat at least three meals a day um however in a little bit more of a further you know analysis in this item it does seem that especially for our student athletes who are actively trying to lose weight there certainly is less of an effort to eat
Three meals a day um in terms of you know maybe suppressing that caloric intake um over half of our student athletes are making an effort to eat fruits and vegetables as well most of our many of our student athletes almost a quarter um say that they avoid eating fried foods when
Possible all right part of um you know in addition to not only student athletes conscious decisions about what food to eat and thinking about you know maintaining their weight we also were really interested in student athletes access to healthy food on their campuses um so really more about you know what
What they can access in terms of um food available to them and not so much about choices um student athletes um about 43% of our Men Sport athletes under a third of women said that healthy food options are readily available to me after practicing competition um we definitely
Saw some differences in that um in terms of division um with division 2 student athletes um being the least likely to say that those he he those healthy food options are readily available um for our student athletes also you know indicating that they can afford to eat
Healthy meals each day um we do see um it’s about under half of our student athletes agreeing to this item that they can afford the healthy meals each day and again we did see some divisional differences and we’ll be having a a release coming out soon with additional
Slid specific to our to to nutrition and food access and you’ll be able to kind of see some differences in terms of division um part of it too is also that I have time to eat healthy meals each day um half of our men’s sports athletes
Indicate that they do have that time but it’s about a third of our women’s sports athletes and we do know from some of our previous research um and goals our goal study for student athletes that our women sports athlet athletes are more likely to report um spending more hours
On in a given day um really um dedicated towards their academics um so there could be other you know pressures for our student athletes Beyond um competition but also you know in pulling away them their time and how they’re able to spend their days on campus all right in terms of support for
Our student athletes we did want to ask them a bit about access to resources um certainly you know we see a majority of our student athletes feeling that their coaches care about their mental well-being um but they are less likely to feel comfortable talking to their coaches about mental health issues um
Just over half of our men’s sports athletes only 40% of women sports athletes would feel comfortable talking with their coaches um you see some higher numbers on the right hand side in terms of the coaches caring about our student athletes physical well-being um almost three quarters indicate that they they
Perceive that level of care and they are much more comfortable talking with their coaches about physical health issues when you compare that to how comfortable they are in talking to their coaches about mental health issues we do we did ask this item um you know with their coaches caring about
Their mental well-being we’ve asked it um in our goal survey as well and you can see that there is a bit of a decline for our student athletes particularly among our women’s sports athletes and how they’re responding to this item um we’re not really sure you know maybe we
Know what has changed we know from our survey um that we did recently with coaches and their mental well-being we know that coaches care deeply about student athletes mental well-being and are definitely spending way more time um than they have in the past talking to student athletes about mental Wellness
Um but clearly here there is um a bit of a a disconnect um potentially for some of our women’s sports athletes in perceiving the coach care in that space um and in terms of feeling comfortable talking to their coaches about mental health issues you can see that that also has declined among our
Student athletes for both men’s sports and women’s sports um it could be that this conversation is harder to have but it could be that there are other available resources on campus and so rather than wanting to discuss it with coaches perhaps student athletes are just more comfortable having these
Conversations with other clinicians or other providers on their campuses most of our student athletes um indicate that they know where to go on campus if they have a mental health concern about three two-thirds of our student athletes um but only about half said they would feel comfortable seeking
Support from a mental health provider on their campus um we have a study currently in the field um asking questions of our student athletes about what what changes could be made um to make them feel more comfortable you know seeking support from a provider on
Campus and so we look forward to kind of digging into that more deeply next year um but I I think that’s an area we really want to continue to explore what can we do to make our student athletes feel more comfortable finding a provider
On campus um but it we do see that you know over two-thirds of our student athletes say there are at least people on campus they can trust to give them support when needed majority of our student athletes know how to help a teammate who is experiencing a mental health issue um
About half a little over half of men just under half of women say that they feel that student athletes mental health is a priority to their athletics department um and you know a majority of our student athletes do feel that the athletes on their campuses take mental health concerns of their teammates
Seriously I think this is the really interesting item we’ve been asking um you know our intent to intervene um since 2012 in our first social environment study and so we repeated those items again with this um health and wellness survey um we see you know student Au consistently have have
Indicated they would be likely or extremely likely to intervene when it comes to supporting a teammate um in cases of of alcohol use or or you know drinking and driving they’re very likely to to stop a teammate um from driving or to help accompany a teammate home and
That’s been very consistent across the board but I would want to draw your attention to is where you see that that gold um highlight this is a question about whether or not student student athletes indicate they’d be likely or extremely likely to intervene in a situation if it could lead to unwanted
Sexual behavior um you know for our men’s sports athletes we have seen a a very sizable increase in the willingness to intervene among men in 2012 it was just 63% in this most recent study it is now 85% which is just such a strong increase for women sports you know in
2012 it was also 71% and we saw that rise to 90% in 2016 and it’s stayed relatively constant um since that time so just some really I think you know thinking about the effort that campuses has made have made in terms of sexual violence prevention um and also bystander intervention training um you
Know it is is kind of heartening to see this increase um among willingness to intervene for both men and women in this area all right one of our last slides for everyone um we asked our student athletes what do they which their coaches and administrators at their
School would talk more about um you know thinking about all those items that we just learned about in terms of nutrition and access to healthy food student athletes are very interested um in learning more about proper nutrition and how to fuel their bodies um some of our
Some of this survey also examine you know for our our student athletes supplement use and I think better understanding supplements um and then to also just how what healthy foods can I eat for my competition is certainly something that our men Sports athletes and women sports athletes are are really
Keen to learn more about over half of our student athletes um mental Wellness also stands out here 42% of men um 67% of our women’s sports athletes indicating that they really wish their coaches and administrators would continue to talk more about this topic even though we know that already people
Are talking about it so much um also really high numbers in wanting to talk about getting good sleep and I think that really kind of ties into the data that Kelsey shared with you a little bit earlier the last one I want to point your attention to is really body image
Um you know we looked at some of those items some really concerning items for our um women’s sports athletes you know not feeling confident in pictures not liking their bodies um you can see 50% of our women’s sports athletes wish that their coaches and administrators would
Talk more about body image um 16% for our men Sports athletes so I just think a really important item here that definitely stands out to me so how can you learn more about this study um if you go to the NCA research web page which is just at ncaa.org
Resesarch under the well-being tab on that page you can find um more about the NCA student athlete health and wellness study um we have in addition to all the slides that you just saw there are even more available um to to the membership or to anyone in the public who would
Like to learn more um there’s a comprehensive deck on Mental Health a more a comprehensive deck on substance use and then also the slides that you just saw here are also available um within the next few weeks we will also have a more robust deck on um student
Athlete nutrition body image and weight as well all right and that is our final slide for everyone again that’s our NCA research page um and then if you are interested um you can follow us on Twitter or X um as well at NCA research that was great Kelsey and Lydia
Really really appreciate it you know let me ask a broad question first so uh recently the Board of Governors approved the second edition of the NCA mental health best practices so that’s becoming widely distributed to the membership and it will uh become effective in August 2024 so just looking at some of the
Findings you know you touched on a lot from uh uh sleep to um uh weight and and and Body Image issues to the the Comfort level uh that individuals have and seeking care and so forth how do you take the these findings and apply it to the mental health best practices and and
Let me get more specific about that every member School must have in place policies education and the like or mental health that are consistent with the updated NC mental health best practices and that’s divided into four core areas one is creating an environment of wellness and Mental Health Care seeking a second is
Screening a third area is really how to access care both for routine and emergency mental health care and the fourth is really identifying providers so can you just speak just generally how this survey can maybe help campuses really implement the mental health best practices well I think one really
Important aspect here and and I think Kelsey definitely kind of highlighted this when she was sharing um the mental health slides you know for for many of our student athletes they’re intersecting identities May in many ways um have interplay and really their overall mental mental well-being and you
Know I think one some great work that’s been done by the sport Science Institute and and some of the Committees that have been put together to really inform this second the second edition of the mental health best practices has been really thinking about how do we enhance mental
Health for our diverse student athlete population so I think you know the these data I hope will help campuses kind of think about you know what what is unique to our student athlete population are we rately meeting the needs of our student athletes um might we want to ask some
Questions you know we may not need to do our own survey but might we want to ask some questions of our student athletes in terms of their own level of comfort and seeking um Care on our campus um and as you can see in the data you know
There are certainly um student athletes who want to talk more about mental health they feel you know they know where to access providers on campus but they may not feel comfortable and you know maybe asking questions internally about what can we do to enhance that level of comfort um I think would be
Really important um on a on the campus level Kelsey I invite you if I miss anything to definitely chime in I think you did a great job I think the only thing I would also mention is focusing on a system of care because we saw um you know some student athletes they the
Majority of student athletes know where to go and what to do but some may not be feeling comfortable on campus so it might be making sure that the providers that are available whether on campus you know it’s referral off-campus are providers that the student athlete feels comfortable with whether it’s identity
Based whether it’s a provider be able to speak to the Athletics experience directly or whether anonymity is really important because I do think that there’s still a level of stigma happening um in seeking care and making sure that student athletes are as comfortable as possible and have um
Folks that they or a system that they trust um when seeking care yeah and that Comfort it really starts right at the beginning of of the year I mean and and throughout the year so creating an environment uh means that you’re talking about mental health that you’re letting everyone know that mental
Health and physical health matter that they that that they intersect that every sport team knows where to find the providers who the providers are and the providers really should be meeting with the sport teams as well and it’s really critically important that the coaches emphasize not only Wellness but Mental
Health Care seeking and so I think the more we’re proactive on that the the better we’ll be so so Point very well taken going going back to the other point and and and Kelsey you were in particular talking about um the higher rate of of mental health issues and
Those who identify on on the queer Spectrum versus straight and and maybe help us understand it it’s not because I identify as straight or if I identify as gay that that’s going to mean I have mental health disorder or not isn’t it more related to like social determinance
Of Health the environment that that you’re in the sense of acceptance or non-acceptance that that really determines the issues absolutely it’s not necessarily it’s not because someone identifies a certain way as bipo or lgbtq plus it’s the societal pressures and acceptance right um we’ve seen a wave of of political uh uh things
Happening right that that are targeting lgbtq plus folks across the across the country not just student athletes not just administrators and that that’s impacting the student body it’s impacting our general population of folks that identify this way so so I mean I think you stated it perfectly Dr
Hanline it’s really the social pressures and the social um maybe the lack of acceptance or the lack of uh of of a well-being well an environment that promotes um acceptance and well-being for for those folks so yeah yeah so another uh take-home point is being proactive about about those issues as as
Well because it it it really is a a serious concern um and and and it’s not just you know about having an increased risk of depression or anxiety but suicidality and so so these are really really core um issues you know Kelsey you spoke about sleep um and no matter
How much we talk about sleep it it seems that sleep remains a serious issue and and just for all of our our viewers and listeners here um we know that sleep disorders predict suicidal ideation Sleep Disorders can predict mental health symptoms and disorders Sleep Disorders even predict muscular skeletal injuries more so than
Overtraining so sleep is so critically important I I don’t know if if you have Insight from this study about what we can do about sleep other than trying to be proactive once again well I think what the study tells us is is like I shared earlier there’s a lot of work to
Do in when it comes to sleep um we saw from the study that not only are our good amount of student athletes especially women not getting enough restful sleep each in the past week um but they’re also feeling dragged out during the day some are even falling asleep at inappropriate times and places
So there’s a there’s a a lot to do in this space um we know from our some of our other studies our goal study for example a little bit more um Insight on time demand student athletes um are spending a great deal of time between practice games lifting study hall classes extracurricular social
Activities family um everything needs more time and there’s only so much time in the day and often what happens as sleep is the area that is sacrificed to get it all done and so I think what we can learn from this study as well as the goal study on
Time demands is that coaches and administrators can be a little more cognizant um and and aware of prioritizing sleep and focusing on that for student athletes and when it comes to scheduling practices or other activi activities really making sure it’s not hindering or reducing student athletes
Sleep if team has if the team has traveled in late the night before is is it really necessary to get up as early as 6:00 a or 5:00 am. for practice the next day um simply just being aware that sleep should not be the area uh of a
Student athletes life that should be sacrificed to fit everything in um so I think that that’s an important takeaway from the study yeah one thing Brian I think also you know we when you look at that data about you know for our student athletes who are getting you know zero to like
Less than half of the week they’re waking feeling rested we find that they feel like they’re not performing up to their ability they’re they’re mentally and physically exhausted those student athletes who are well rested are far more likely to feel that they’re performing at their best I mean sleep is
As we’ve talked about before it’s it’s one of the best it’s it’s a free totally legal um performance-enhancing drug in so many ways um it is an amazing it’s great for everybody um and yet so often um sacrificing your sleep is a point of Pride not not for athletes justult cult
Al I mean we people love to talk about how they are running on fumes and that does not it’s just so sad that that’s like a point of Pride when it shouldn’t be at all there should be no like reward given to you for talking about the fact
That you’ve you’ve only had two and a half hours of sleep um so how do we kind of reframe the way that we’re talking about sleep and maybe even how do we help student athletes understand that a good night’s sleep might be their best key to being their best on the field or
On the court um how do we kind of flip the way we’re thinking about sleep is not something that’s you know can be sacrificed or short changed just to get other things done but where it getting making sure you’re getting sleep is actually going to make you your best not
Only in the classroom but then also in terms of your sport yeah that’s a great way to frame it Lydia so uh you know when we think of being an athlete what we really are trying to do is to improve our performance so our mental performance our physical performance really our spiritual
Performance how we can really creatively go out and and continue to drive ourselves to be better and better and and and so you’re you’re absolutely right I mean both of when you talk about sleep being key for performance but speaking of performance and perception if the real focus is to
Improve your performance Lydia how do we change this other issue about weight where you have about 50% of females believe that they need to lose weight 50% of male athletes believe they need to gain weight and I have a feeling that when you’re trying to lose weight as a
Female athlete that’s not about performance that sounds like it’s about something else I don’t know if you have Insight from the study on this but it’s it’s very disconcerting yeah no I feel the same way and I think you know certainly that’s you know we we’ve had
Societal pressures on women to to look a certain way or to to fit a certain you know a body body type have this is not new this is something we’ve been talking about for for decades centuries I’m sure um I think the the the challenge here though is that for our student athletes
You know for some of them they’re they’re at the peak of their you know many of them are at Peak in terms of their their physical their physicality and their athleticism and yet you know they may be engaging in behaviors that undermine their ability to be as strong
And as um you know competitive as possible because they’re trying to meet some kind of societal expectation over like an ideal body I think that’s true for for men and for women um right now we have a survey in the field um our our wagering um and social environment
Survey is in the field and we do have additional questions about the intersections of social media and Body Image that’s an area we’re really interested in learning more about is how are how is the media that our student athletes are consuming is that in any way um exacerbating some of these
Concerns around body image I feel like you know I I know Athletics departments have been trying to address body image particularly among our women um and disord ordered eating in particular for for decades um but we really haven’t made a lot of traction in these spaces um because I don’t think the societal
Pressures have really have changed in many ways and so we’re constantly fighting against those as well so it’s another example when we when we look at health and sometimes we look at Health in in a very narrow way the social determinance of Health the societal pressures they’re they’re so
Critically important and um and when we talk about losing weight or the desire to lose weight and and and then there’s a a spectrum or Continuum of of disordered eating to an eating disorder which which really has a high mortality rate so we we really need to pay
Attention to to these things um you know another issue you spoke about and uh Lydia in particular was early specialization and I just want to make a couple of comments about that but for everyone there’s a huge difference between early initiation in sport which should be for everyone and early specialization meaning that
You’re uniquely focusing just on one sport and and often that happens around puberty so um uh some of you know I really like tennis and I just returned from the Australian Open and uh yaner the Italian um he won uh Grand Slam for the first time so it’s kind of a
Changing of of the Guard he’s a young tennis player and is in his acceptance speech he thanked his parents for not forcing him to choose any sport at a young age they just let him choose what made the most sense for him and you know he did many sports ultimately found
Tennis and and and did pretty well and and so this isn’t something the NCAA can do a lot about other than to talk about the fact that early specialization just doesn’t make sense for really anything because we know early specialization early sport specialization is associated with greater Dropout greater burnout
More injury risk and you Peak at an early age and not when you necessarily want to so um something for us to continue to talk about and maybe the NCA as an umbrella can work with other National governing bodies to keep bringing home that point um I think
We’re getting toward the end of uh uh today’s Spotlight but anything that stands out for for uh Kel Kelsey or or Lydia for you in this survey is something we really need to do more work on I don’t know if it’s uh well I mean
We spoke on on uh more work to do when it comes to sleep awareness education related to sleep um I just really want to drive home the point related to mental health and and student athletes uh uh knowing where to go um knowing what to do which is great that’s a huge
Win right because I don’t know 15 years ago that the data would have looked as encouraging in that space But I think really focusing on um why they may not be comfortable on campus um or off- campus with the providers that are that are available so so figuring out what
That looks like uh for each campus but I do want to mention you know the encouraging news you know just hit on that again when it comes to some of our substance use areas I we are super encouraged by you know binge drinking being so far down um
The use of narcotic pain meds there’s been a lot of work in that space and that being down espe particularly among those uh without a prescription spit tobacco use being down um those are all big wins because there’s been a lot of work done in that space particularly by
Um Dr hanline and the SSI the SSI team um we were a little surprised that cannabis rates weren’t um rising in line quite at the same trajectory as as they were with college students Broadley so I think that that’s fairly encouraging and then of course um something to monitor
Is the High rate of of vaping um but but as I mentioned before that that seems to be a generational Trend um and hopefully we’ll see we’ll see that go down in the years to come but um I’ll stop there those are those are some of the
Encouraging things that that we we have been feeling and and I’m I’m happy that we are able to have this platform to share this data once again well great yeah and it is important to uh point out there’s some really good news in this survey so so
That that is encouraging um so for everyone we are going to continue the spotlight series we’re going to focus on cannabinoids um for for a a few series sessions um because as you may know there is legislation that is is is being brought about across the divisions to no
Longer test for cannabis at championships but that doesn’t mean that we’re taking a less a fair attitude we actually are going to be taking a very very deep dive into how to address cannabis use disorder um at the campus level we’re going to have Spotlight series on pain we’ll continue with
Mental health we’ll we’ll have a spotlight series on sleep and if you have ideas something that you would really like us to focus on please reach out to us it’s SSI ncaa.org we’re always here uh to listen and uh always here to to take suggestions um and and I want to end
This uh today’s uh session really by thanking um Lydia and Kelsey not only for presenting today but for the leadership that you you you you show throughout the year um you you’re just so insightful uh for how we can really understand our student athletes better the way you conduct the research and and
The rate of return on that is is is is beyond exceptional and it’s really a privilege for me to work with both of you and and I look forward to continuing that collaboration so so thanks again Kelsey and Lydia and and and thanks everyone for joining us and wishing you a good day
