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Behind the graduate mental health crisis in science

Nature Biotechnology volume 42, pages 1749–1753 (2024)Cite this article

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Survey results identify how scientific research and teaching contribute to the graduate student mental health crisis.

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Fig. 1: The average annual frequency encountered and the corresponding average severity of impact of aspects of research and teaching that exacerbated and alleviated graduate students’ symptoms of anxiety and/or depression.
Fig. 2: The impact of anxiety and depression on graduate research and teaching.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank L. Kennedy for her work on this project. This work was supported by a CAREER award to K.M.C. (no. 00037072). C.A.B. was supported by a US National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (no. 026257-001). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research for Inclusive STEM Education Center, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Carly A. Busch, Nicholas J. Wiesenthal & Katelyn M. Cooper

  2. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Logan E. Gin

Authors
  1. Carly A. Busch
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  2. Nicholas J. Wiesenthal
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  3. Logan E. Gin
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  4. Katelyn M. Cooper
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Contributions

C.A.B., N.J.W., L.E.G. and K.M.C. collected the data. C.A.B. analyzed the data. C.A.B. and K.M.C. wrote the manuscript with input from all authors. K.M.C. provided supervision and acquired funding.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Katelyn M. Cooper.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods, References, Supplementary Tables 1–17, Copy of survey questions and Supplementary Fig. 1

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Busch, C.A., Wiesenthal, N.J., Gin, L.E. et al. Behind the graduate mental health crisis in science. Nat Biotechnol 42, 1749–1753 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-024-02457-z

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