ResearchPosted on rand.org Jul 22, 2026Published in: Journal of American College Health (2026). DOI: 10.1080/07448481.2026.2701384
This study examined effects of exposure to a campus mental health promotion exhibit (Send Silence Packing®; SSP) on changes in college students’ help-seeking intentions.
College students (n = 576) from six campuses completed online surveys (baseline, 1-month, 6-month follow-up) assessing exposure to their campus’ SSP exhibit (fall, 2022) and mental health help-seeking intentions, psychological distress, and service utilization.
Fixed effects regression models examined associations between exposure to SSP (any vs. no) and changes in help-seeking intentions.
Relative to baseline, SSP exposure was associated with increases in intentions to seek help from informal sources (friend; family) at 1-month (B = 0.22, SE = 0.08, p = 0.006) and 6-month follow-up (B = 0.20, SE = 0.08, p = 0.01) but not from a mental health professional.
Peer-informed campus mental health promotion exhibits may increase students’ intentions to leverage informal sources of support when experiencing a mental health challenge.
This publication is part of the RAND external publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.
RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.
