My parents have both worked in the criminal justice system and I grew up learning that mentally ill persons are not properly taken care of and therefore have often been forced into the criminal justice system rather than being provided proper medical care.

Therefore, I was curious about examining the strength - or lack thereof - of the mental health care sector; specifically, how mental health campaigns have contributed to the growth and improvement of the mental health infrastructure in the United States. As increasing suicide rates have triggered a public health crisis over the past years, I decided to specifically examine campaign related suicide prevention. Having analyzed several suicide campaigns, such as the Trevor Project, the Jed Foundation, Active Minds, Project Semicolon, and Hope for the Day, I have found that campaigns that produced higher level of visibility through celebrity endorsement as well as news and social media coverage, had a positive impact on improving the mental health infrastructure; especially eased access to care facilities, such as hotlines and community network spaces, as well as increased resource availability to engage in educational outreach. I measured the relationship by creating a point-system to assess if a campaign demonstrates a low, medium, or high visibility level and subsequently leads to low, medium, or high level of increases in mental health infrastructure.

Not only does this research help bring to the surface a topic of mental health that easily gets tossed aside and/or neglected, but it also allows me to integrate my major, International Studies & Political Science, with my minor in Psychology.

Delilah Martindale '25

Mentor: Dr. Vera Heuer, Professor, International Studies and Political Science
Major: International Studies
Hometown: San Bruno, California