Evaluation of a Social Media Campaign on Youth Mental Health Stigma and Help-Seeking

Mental health (MH) stigma affects help seeking behaviors of youth, particularly youth of color. This article reports the impact of Look Around (LA), a social media campaign designed to reduce MH stigma and increase help seeking in 6th- to 12th-grade youth in one Midwestern county. The campaign utilized movie theater advertising, social media, web-based advertising, and school-based media/events over a school year. Using a pre-posttest survey research design with 11,478 6th- to 12th-grade students in a Midwestern county, we used paired t-tests to examine pre- to posttest changes in survey items addressing MH stigma and help seeking attitudes. We then used a regression model to examine change by racial subgroup on a composite of all the items. Lastly, we used an independent t-test to examine differences between high-change youth and low-change youth on academic performance, attendance, discipline, and MH screening scores. Posttest improvements in the stigma and help-seeking for all youth were observed, but controlling for all covariates (grade level, sex, etc.), youth of color reported lower levels of change compared to White youth. Social media campaigns are useful in addressing MH stigma and help seeking, but messaging may need to attend to the cultural characteristics of all youth. IMPACT STATEMENT The report here summarizes a program evaluation of a social media campaign to reduce stigma and increase help seeking attitudes of youth in a single Mid-Western county. Relying on population level data, analyses indicate that students exposed to the content of the campaign had significant reductions in self-reported attitudes surrounding stigma and increases in help seeking. Students with above average change also had fewer mental health symptoms. Moderation models suggest youth of color experienced less change compared to white youth.