Mental Health
Raising awarness
The Health Ambassadors is an initiative launched by the Direction des études, de la vie étudiante et des carrières (DEVEC) at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS), Paris. Born out of the challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis in 2020, this initiative was created to provide accurate information about the virus, ensure students had access to reliable standards of care, and facilitate a smooth and safe return to campus life.
Supporting the Community During the COVID-19 Crisis
Throughout the pandemic, the Health Ambassadors played a vital role in supporting the ENS community by:
- Communicating about COVID-19 vaccination: Disseminating accurate and accessible information to encourage informed decision-making.
- Assisting with contact tracing: Offering guidance and support to individuals identified as close contacts of COVID-positive cases.
- Promoting safety through monitoring tools: Procuring CO2 detectors to monitor air quality in classrooms and shared spaces, providing alerts when levels indicated an increased risk of infection.
Expanding Health Awareness Beyond COVID-19
The Health Ambassadors extended their focus to address broader health concerns, including:
- Blood Donation Drives: Organizing events to encourage voluntary blood donations among students and staff.
- Support Groups (Groupes de Parole): Creating spaces for dialogue and mutual support on various health topics, with a particular emphasis on mental and emotional well-being.
- Women’s Health Initiatives: Distributing free hygienic products to combat period poverty and raising awareness about women’s health issues.
This ongoing initiative reflects our commitment to fostering a healthier and more informed community within the ENS campus.
The initiative is still living with new students every year contributing to making the ENS Campus a safe and enjoyable place.
Continuing to raise awarness: mental health and research
Research on mental health
During my graduate degree, I have been selected for a short-term program “Normalienne(s) à l’Hotel Dieu”. This program is established between École normale supérieure and AP-HP, Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris.I have been offered the chance to spend three months, one day a week, immersed in a hospital department. As I was interested in mental health, I did my internship under the supervision of Astrid Chevance . Her research aims to find the best ways to help people with mental health disorders, with a particular focus on depression. One side of her research focuses on identifying and characterising emergent symptoms, daily difficulties and unmet needs. Another side is to develop and evaluate interventions to address these. In this context, I contributed to survey the vocabulary used to describe mental health in biological reserach which lead to the following publication:
- Duranté EK, Ribeiro A, Gaspard-Boulinc L, et al. Biological research on mental pain, social pain and other pains not primarily felt in the body: methodological systematic review. The British Journal of Psychiatry. doi: 10.1192/bjp.2024.292 .
We found that most studies did not clearly define what “non-physical pain” was and used rather varied terms to describe it. They used numerous and different measurement tools, developed for very different concepts of non-physical pain, such as social anxiety or the frustration of basic needs. The majority of studies exclusively included participants without documented psychiatric disorders, while the methods used to induce or simulate non-physical pain in laboratory settings appeared very different from the experiences of non-physical pain actually experienced by individuals with mental health conditions. Finally, many studies did not measure important factors that could influence the results obtained and the conclusions drawn for clinical practice. All of these elements contribute to an inability to compare and aggregate the results of these studies for the development of new therapeutics.
Building safe workplaces
In term of prevention, I think it is important to raise more awareness on mental health. You surely know that we are, what some calls, in a mental health crisis, especially since Covid crisis. In academia, mental health concerns often stem from relentless pressure to perform, publish, and excel. The competitive environment coupled with long hours, isolation, and the constant pursuit of perfection can lead to anxiety, depression, and burnout among scholars (1,2,3,4).
It is not only limited to graduate students : it can affect everyone and is not always related to the work place, but can still hugely affect our work. Even landing tenure and the job security it provides doesn’t necessarily guarantee a smooth ride… As we do with physical health, I believe we can raise awareness and help people speak out when they encounter a problem and try to remove the stigma around mental health to build a supportive environment. But how so ? It actually exists a similar training but for mental health . Unfortunately, I have not been picked out yet to receive this training but I am considering following it some day (but it is expansive).
The question here is not to replace appropriate care, but to be an ear for someone and be able to know most of the facilities at the Institute level, university level and elsewhere to orientate a person struggling with his/her mental health. Did you know for example that you can see a psychologist 8 times a year without any fee? I think showing more support and encourage exchanges around this topic can be beneficial to make our workplace better.