Social Factors in the Mental Health of Young Adults: Bridging Psychological and Network Analysis

The central goal of this project is to produce a novel, precise, and comprehensive account of social factors in young adult mental health - using a novel combination of network nominations, ecological momentary assessment, and neuroimaging methods. To that end, the investigators will collect data from two successive classes of college undergraduates (i.e., classes of 2023 and 2024) over the course of their collegiate tenure.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Depression; Stress; Anxiety; Loneliness
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Examination of students' naturally occurring social ties

Detailed Description

The proposed work will consist of four key components. The investigators will collect data from the class of 2023 in each of their remaining years at college, producing (i) longitudinal data that will allow them to probe the long-term mental health effects of connections made during the transition to college, as well as mental health issues and resilience in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as a function of social connectedness. The investigators will leverage this rich dataset to build (ii) prospective quantitative models to predict mental health outcomes later in college based on a range of social factors measured early in college. They will further collect (iii) a longitudinal replication cohort, the class of 2024, allowing to establish the robustness of their initial findings across samples. Finally, the investigators will add (iv) a neuroimaging component to this dataset in a subset of the class of 2024. This will allow them to examine brain "markers" of connectedness, and add them to a prospective model, providing a novel integration across brain, behavior, and community levels of analysis, and a synthetic assessment of social factors in long-term mental health.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 9941
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • California
    • Stanford, California, United States, 94305
      • Stanford University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Study Population

Stanford undergraduate students in the classes of 2023 and 2024, as well as all students who reside in their dorms.

Description

Inclusion Criteria: Stanford undergraduate students in the classes of 2023 and 2024, as well as all students who reside in their dorms.

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Exclusion Criteria: People under the age of 18

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Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Basic Science
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Class of 2023 and 2024; Stanford undergraduate students who are expected to graduate in Spring of 2023 or 2024	Behavioral: Examination of students' naturally occurring social ties; In this observational study, features of students' social lives, such as the number of quality of relationships they form, and their subjective loneliness, will be used to predict their mental health and well being at later time points.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Depression	Score on self-reported depression measure: Center for Epidemiological Studies Scale - 10 item version. Range = 0 to 30. Higher scores indicate more depressive symptoms	September 2021 - May 2024
Anxiety	Score on self-reported anxiety measure: State-Trait Anxiety Inventory - 20 item version. Range = 20 to 80. Higher scores indicate more symptoms of anxiety.	September 2021 - May 2024

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Loneliness	Score on self-reported loneliness measure: University of California Loneliness Scale - 8 item version. Range = 1 to 5. Higher score indicate greater feeling of loneliness.	September 2021 - May 2024
Stress	Score on self-reported stress measure: Perceived Stress Scale. Range = 1 to 3. Higher scores indicate greater feeling of stress.	September 2021 - May 2024

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Stanford University
• Collaborators: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Jamil Zaki, PhD, Stanford University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): August 30, 2021
• Primary Completion (Actual): May 8, 2026
• Study Completion (Actual): May 8, 2026

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 22, 2021
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 22, 2021
• First Posted (Actual): February 25, 2021

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): June 1, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 28, 2026
• Last Verified: May 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Behavioral Symptoms; Behavior; Anxiety Disorders; Depression
• Other Study ID Numbers: 24593; R01MH125974 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: Unidentifiable data will be shared with other researchers. To that end, alphanumeric identifiers will be assigned to each individual in the sample's population. Direct nomination lists will not be shared because the potential traceability for participants who may gain access to the data after it is published.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL; SAP; ANALYTIC_CODE

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No