Research Discoveries

Teens may need help but are afraid to tell their parents. They may worry about being judged, misunderstood, or having their feelings dismissed. Feeling safe and listened to makes it much easier for them to open up.

Parents often want to help but don't always know how. Parents may recognize that something is wrong but not know what depression or anxiety looks like or what the best response is. Better mental-health information can help parents respond more effectively.

Getting help isn't just about willingness—it can be hard to access. Even when families want professional help, things like cost, insurance, language, transportation, waitlists, and finding culturally appropriate providers can get in the way.

Resettled refugee youth experience intense emotional reactions—including shock, anxiety, hopelessness, and acute fear of being victims of gun violence—upon confronting the reality of U.S. school shootings, which are largely unfamiliar to them prior to arrival.

Utilizing Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, this study highlights how environmental factors and constant exposure through social media heavily shape these students' heightened perceptions of danger and lack of safety in U.S. educational spaces.

Despite many of these refugee youths having prior lived experiences with political conflict or persecution in their home countries, facing the unique threat of mass shootings inside U.S. schools generates a distinct, acute form of terror and adjustment stress.

When faculty, staff, and peers recognize students’ identities, listen to their experiences, and make learning more accessible, students feel safer, valued, and more connected to the content they are learning and with each other.

Supportive learning environments that foster open dialogue, thoughtful teaching, trusted mentors, and collaborative learning strengthen students’ confidence and ability to address injustice in their education, careers, and communities.

Social work undergraduate programs seeking to create and promote inclusive learning environments should consider how students’ responses to supportive communications and interactions vary by race, ethnicity, gender, disability, and other marginalized identities. They should avoid a one-size-fits-all approach and pair affirmation with concrete actions to prevent harm.

Sexual and gender minority young adults face starkly elevated suicide risk. In this nationally representative U.S. sample of 18–29 year-olds, 64% of transgender/nonbinary and 51.7% of sexual minority young adults reported past-year suicidal ideation, compared with roughly 25–31% of their cisgender/heterosexual peers.

Sexual orientation was the single factor tied to every outcome we measured. Even after adjusting for age, race, income, education, region, and more, sexual minority young adults remained 2–5x more likely to report suicidal ideation, suicidal behavior, suicide attempts, and self-harm. Sexual orientation was the only variable significantly linked to all four outcomes.

Gender minority young adults showed the sharpest risk for suicide attempts and self-harm. Transgender/nonbinary young adults had over 6x the odds of a past-year suicide attempt and 5x the odds of self-harm compared to cisgender peers, pointing to an urgent need for affirming, tailored suicide-prevention care for this population.

Researchers have often documented racial differences in firearm violence without examining racism’s role, but growing evidence links historical and present-day racism with racial disparities in interpersonal and police firearm violence.

Firearm violence prevention researchers need multidisciplinary theories and empirical studies informed by these theories to investigate how racist policies and practices, including their downstream consequences, contribute to racial disparities in firearm violence.

Firearm violence prevention researchers need to investigate assets and resources that shield communities from racism’s harmful effects, such as opportunities for upward socioeconomic mobility and community-driven efforts to improve neighborhood safety.

Women who experienced more severe sexual maltreatment in childhood tended to have more distressing birth experiences. For example, they were more likely to feel a loss of control, a lack of support, or fear for their baby's health during delivery.

Trauma symptoms late in pregnancy, not fear of giving birth, helped explain this link. Symptoms like flashbacks, feeling on edge, or feeling emotionally numb in the third trimester partly accounted for why women with childhood sexual maltreatment histories had harder births. General worry about labor did not. This suggests that treating trauma symptoms before delivery could help improve birth experiences.

This pattern appeared most clearly among women of color, though more research is needed. The link through trauma symptoms was statistically meaningful only for women of color. However, the difference between women of color and white women wasn't large enough to conclude that the process truly works differently across groups. Larger studies are needed.