Reducing stigma in high school youth

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Educational Psychology
• Mental Health Research

Background:

• Stigma surrounding mental illness remains a significant issue among adolescents.
• Contact-based education offers a potential strategy to reduce stigma by fostering direct interaction.
• Understanding student characteristics that influence intervention success is crucial for optimizing outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of contact-based education interventions in Canadian high schools.
• To identify student characteristics associated with successful outcomes in stigma reduction.
• To analyze the impact of these interventions on academic performance and social acceptance.

Main Methods:

• A meta-analysis of 21 contact-based education interventions involving 5047 high school students.
• A one-group pretest/posttest design with standardized instruments to measure behavioral intent.
• Mixed-effects logistic regression to identify key student characteristics.

Main Results:

• Interventions, despite heterogeneity, generally improved academic performance, with odds of achieving an A grade increasing 2.57 times.
• Males were less likely to pass overall, but those disclosing mental illness were more likely to pass.
• A small percentage (3%) of students, predominantly males, experienced a decrease in social acceptance.

Conclusions:

• Contact-based education is a promising approach for reducing stigma in high school students.
• Standardization and fidelity criteria are needed to minimize intervention variability.
• Differential responses to anti-stigma programming exist between genders, particularly for students with self-reported mental illness.