If you talk to just about anyone in Northeast Ohio, it’s likely that they know someone personally who has struggled with addiction or mental health issues. Mental health is a broad topic that is constantly splashed across headlines with different trends and ideas emerging on social media usage, teenage anxiety and depression rising along with suicide risk. Regionally, Ohio has been known for opioid addiction in a crushing epidemic that continues to wreak havoc on families and communities. But with all of these headlines come personal stories that have unfortunately become all too common.
That’s where Deric Kenne, Ph.D., director of Kent State University’s Center for Public Policy and Health and professor of health policy and management, comes in. Through a slate of different projects, the center conducts research specifically to develop and improve community health, by improving public policy and providing assistance to public, non-profit and private sector organizations across the state of Ohio, as well as nationally and soon internationally. Here is a look at just a few of the projects Kenne is working on with the center, including collaborations with other departments at Kent State.
Training the Community
One of the problems with mental health training has historically been that it is too lengthy or complicated. Kenne saw a way to change that by creating shorter trainings that were more accessible to the community, as well as offering broader trainings than those only focused on suicide because that wasn’t necessarily what was always needed. The Center for Public Policy and Health in the College of Public Health uses grant funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration to support the Northeast Ohio Mental Health Awareness Training, which includes a new training method, A.I.D. Training.
A.I.D. Training is 60 to 90 minutes and is broken down by:
Awareness: Recognizing signs and symptoms of distress
Interaction: Effectively interacting with someone in distress
Direction: Locating and providing resources to individuals in distress
“It’s designed to be for people who don’t have any kind of background and knowledge in mental health. We train the everyday person to be able to be more aware of and identify somebody who might be experiencing some kind of psychological distress,” Kenne said.
Since Oct. 1, 2023, they have trained more than 720 people in Northeast Ohio by providing trainings at six public schools, eight charter schools and 11 A.I.D. for coaches trainings.
Through these trainings, they help people see signs of mental distress and work through scenarios to practice it.
“Noticing someone who just doesn’t seem to be themselves, or they’re crying a lot all of a sudden. Or they just seem very anxious. Being able to identify those individuals. And then what I think is a more important and probably the harder part is then being able to go up to that person and have a conversation with them,” Kenne said. “You know something’s going on and having that conversation and then once you’ve had that conversation, then being able to connect that person with whatever resources, mental health and behavioral health resources, there are in the community.”
These trainings are often given at schools when teachers have training days so they can identify mental health issues in their students, but they are also open to the public in places like libraries or mental health boards across several counties in Northeast Ohio. The programs also have started to expand across the state and nationally into 15 states currently, with plans for further expansion. They’re even working to build a Spanish-language version that will start initially in Peru and potentially move into Costa Rica.
Deric Kenne“We teach those kinds of skills, to recognize it, to have a conversation and then help that person connect with whatever services are in the community so that they can get help if that’s what they need.”
Focusing Resources for Easier Accessibility
Working across the campus is another important part of the work that Kenne is doing at the center. A collaboration with colleagues in nursing, biology and educational technology is underway for a digital health hub in Akron aimed at helping LGBTQ+ community members find the resources they need in one easy place.
The goal is to make it easier for people to find the help they need while also filtering through the lens of what would be safe for that population. Some resources might not be friendly to someone from the LGBTQ+ community, so those wouldn’t be included on this website to ensure people can trust that the resources shown are actually available to them. It includes basic information, like open hours and locations, but also augmented reality, which would allow a user to watch a video of what the inside of the building might look like so they can feel prepared, or see a video from a nurse or practitioner explaining how it works or what services are offered so they will feel more comfortable.
“The idea is that if I’m an LGBTQ+ person and I’m looking for, I don't know, HIV testing, or I’m looking for healthcare because I can’t afford to go to the hospital, or I need a food pantry, or I need clothes, I can go to this health hub and all of that information is in this one place. I can go to one website and get all that information,” Kenne explained.
They do this by partnering with Akron AIDS Collaborative to utilize resources already available in the community to help bolster the local population.
“We’re working with some community agencies in that area since they already have that population and they’re the experts, so we’re using them to help us develop this the right way,” Kenne said.
Predicting Hot Spots for Addiction Through Social Media
An innovative collaboration between Kenne and Ruoming Jin, Ph.D., professor of computer science at Kent State, is developing and implementing a real-time drug use detection system to inform drug prevention efforts in Portage, Geauga and Lake counties in Ohio. By using social media and geospatial data, they can assess substance use in each county.
The goal of the project is to assess hot spots where drug or alcohol use is spiking, which can help with planning for addiction resources and need, but also to work to prevent the onset and progression of drug use in young people. Over time, they hope that the system will be able to predict substance abuse trends so they can assess needs in advance instead of having prevention tactics having to be reactive.
Learn more about their research here:
Helping the Community
This is really just a snapshot of some of the projects going on in the center. Kenne also is collaborating with Helen Piontkivska, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, about RNA markers that could potentially predict suicide risk. Suicide prevention training is also offered alongside the A.I.D. trainings.
There is work going on in Summit and Athens counties in Ohio to help expand opioid treatment through local organizations.
On the Kent Campus, the center works to train campus partners to help detect mental health concerns in students and staff and started the Here to Help initiative, which identifies staff who have taken mental health training. By displaying the initiative’s logo in an email signature, social media profile or on an office door, members of the community know that they have someone they can talk to or reach out to for help.
Deric Kenne“There’s that stigma where if you if you have anxiety or if you have depression, you’re crazy or weird. That it’s not a medical thing and it’s something that you could cure on your own essentially. And people just can’t do that.”
Looking to the Future
If it feels like mental health issues have only gotten worse in recent memory, that’s because they have, according to the data that Kenne sees through his work.
“Substance use isn’t going away. It doesn’t seem like we’re making a dent in that. In fact, there’s data showing that alcohol use is increasing, especially among younger women,” Kenne said.
Changes in what kinds of products are available and marketed to younger audiences is also an issue, he says, like vaping or even flavored nitrous available to buy in stores with flavors that are targeted to young people.
Social media is also a major concern.
“We’re seeing a lot of anxious kids. And I know a lot of that comes from social media and what they see on there and what these algorithms show them,” Kenne said.
All of this points to the importance of collecting data and engaging in the community projects that the Center does so that there are more prevention programs and resources available once people have mental health or addiction disorders.
Reducing the stigma of mental health is the biggest issue in Kenne’s eyes when it comes to helping those with mental health struggles.
“Coming up with initiatives or programs or education that reduce that stigma, so people don’t feel afraid to get help. I’m sure people don’t want to feel like this, and it’s just gotten to that point and they’re afraid to say anything,” Kenne said.
With the work of the mental health trainings, that stigma will be further reduced as more and more people learn more about mental health in general and can learn to lend a listening ear and help.