Mental Health over Dinner is an immersive in-person social experience designed to start hard conversations about mental health with friends and family over the dinner table. The goal is to encourage students, and the general population, to discuss mental health topics with their friends, family, and community in a supportive environment over meals to reduce stigma and increase access to resources and support. MHOD is inspired by Death over Dinner, an existing initiative that uses hosted dinner conversations to discuss death, end-of-life, grief, and related topics. Participants sign up through the Death Over Dinner website to host conversations on these topics with their friends and loved ones over a shared meal. The website provides customized scripts and discussion guides to facilitate the conversations. It has hosted over a million dinners since launching and helped shift cultural conversations around death and dying.

- Reducing stigma around mental health issues

- Creating genuine access for people to have conversations about mental health 

- Educating people and being a catalyst for change in how society views and supports those with mental illness

- Helping students find mental health resources and support through peer-led conversations

- Becoming a part of the wellness market– to make MHOD something packaged up that employers or schools can implement to improve mental health on their campuses 

Many college students, and adults, who suffer from mental health issues like depression, anxiety, or other conditions do not seek or receive the help and support they need due to stigma and lack of access to resources. Peer-led dinner conversations could help reduce stigma, educate students, and connect them with support through meaningful discussions with friends and loved ones. The project aims to design an effective framework and strategy for implementing this model on college campuses.

- Developing engagement strategies and branding/messaging approaches

- Designing an interactive platform to host discussion scripts and stories (outside of the online experience that MHOD is already designing)  

- Creating a practical initiative and implementation plan focused on universities/colleges

- Providing recommendations and deliverables MHOD can use to launch the program

The scope does not include clinical aspects like script development, website user experience design, or creating new partnerships. 

While the focus of MHOD is intended to be relevant to anyone, initially, the intended audience is college students. As the program expands into new sectors (i.e. workplace wellness programs), it will need to suit a larger range of guests. 

- In 2020, 19 million students were enrolled in colleges and universities (both graduate and undergraduate), with 74% being enrolled in public universities (Hanson, 2024)

- 55% White, 13% black, 20% Hispanic, >1% AI/AN, 4% two or more races, 7% Asian in 2018 (Hanson, 2024)

- “66.6% of college students are aged 24 years and under” (Handson, 2024)

- In 2021, 58.36% of enrolled students identified as female (Hanson, 2024)

- Young people aged 15-24 now have 70% less social interaction with their friends than they did in the early 2000s

- An estimated 31.1% of U.S. adults experience an anxiety disorder at some time in their lives.

- The percentage of U.S. adults who report having been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lifetime has reached 29.0%, nearly 10 percentage points higher than in 2015.

- People in our intended audience are in Gen Z, these psychographics apply to the generation more broadly. 

- First digital natives generation (Parker, 2020)

- Care more about authenticity and positive purpose from brands than other generations (Marconi, 2022)

- Shorter attention spans (about 8 seconds) than other generations (Marconi, 2022)

- More likely to be left-leaning politically- support issues like climate change, LGBTQ rights, Black Lives Matter, and be pro-choice (Media Choice, 2023)

- “They also describe themselves as impulsive (27%), indulgent (20%), and status-conscious (10%)” (Media Choice, 2023)

- “Top psychological drivers include living an exciting life (35%), recognition from peers (14%), and social/professional status (12%).” (Media Choice, 2023)

- Gen Z is mobile-first, things should be designed for the phone screen rather than the desktop

- As we exit the pandemic, conversations around mental health continue to increase

- Younger generations are more open to sharing their personal experiences with mental health

- Increased desire and call for universities to do more to support the mental health of their students

- Death over Dinner and other similar initiatives have proven to be successful

- Traditional therapy and wellness models rely on private sessions or retreats away from our regular lives. There is a gap to be filled in having conversations with those around us about mental health

- Millions of meals are eaten around tables at Universities already every day

- Mental health resources continue to be difficult to access and costly

- Mental health issues are treatable and help is available

- Where on-campus support systems exist

- The signs and symptoms of common mental health conditions (anxiety/depression)

- The people in their communities whom they can turn to for support, healing happens through community

- Personal stories of people close to them

- Importance of reducing the stigma around mental health

- Supported with the right resources to have these conversations

- Connected to their peers by sharing stories

- Cared about, knowing the support systems the university has put in place to help them

- Inspired to investigate their own mental health and start conversations with others about it 

- Comfortable discussing hard topics with people they are close with

- A sense of urgency in starting these conversations

- Host/Participate in a dinner using the resources provided by MHOD

- Talk with friends/family about mental health

- Use on-campus resources provided for mental health

- Educate themselves on mental health issues

- Support their peers when they are struggling

- Build awareness of the importance of mental health through word-of-mouth advertising

- Number of visits to the MHOD platform, dinners hosted

- Increased adoption at universities across the country

- Participant feedback (Net promoter scores, student testimonials)

- Increased utilization of campus resources

- Increased media coverage and awareness of MHOD

- What timeline or important dates should we be aware of? Target launch date?

- What does your partnership with Palette and Thrive look like? Where do you see our work intersecting (if at all)? 

- What, specifically, are universities asking for? What has this ask looked like? (How can we create something that meets the needs of universities)

- How are the prompts being created to counter oversharing? What steps are being taken to prevent harm? Guardrails/Boundaries? 

- Do you envision a customized solution for every university, or rather, one that can be universally applied to all institutions?

- Tell us about the onboarding experience of MHOD. What is the first-time user experience?

- How have you been collecting data to measure the impact of the dinners? As a decentralized model, what does this process look like?

- Should this initiative be held on campus? Would it be more effective off campus? (is there a funding-related concern here?)

- Is email still the format for the MHOD response email? How is this being adapted for Gen Z?

- How is the content of the program going to be made accessible for people with existing mental health issues (ADHD, Anxiety, etc)?

- Privacy concerns? If someone puts something into MHOD as part of a university program, will that be reported to the university? 

- How will MHOD engage stakeholders and gain buy-in on individual campuses? 

- Gather more information and answers to the questions above. Continue learning about mental health communications best practices and the context that MHOD exists within. 

- Ideate. Generate solutions for MHOD based on the criteria given.

- Iterate. Check in with Michael and the MHOD team to see if our ideas will work, or if we need to change directions

- Generate a project proposal.

Sources:

  Hansen. (n.d.). College Enrollment Statistics [2023]: Total + by Demographic. Education Data Initiative. Retrieved February 5, 2024, from https://educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics

  Marconi, B. (n.d.). Marketing to Gen Z: Authenticity Matters - Parallel Path. Https://Parallelpath.Com/. Retrieved February 5, 2024, from https://parallelpath.com/blog/marketing-to-gen-z-authenticity-matters/

  Parker, K. (2020, May 14). On the Cusp of Adulthood and Facing an Uncertain Future: What We Know About Gen Z So Far. Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/05/14/on-the-cusp-of-adulthood-and-facing-an-uncertain-future-what-we-know-about-gen-z-so-far-2/

  The Psychographics of Gen Z: What Really Drives Them? | Media Culture. (n.d.). Media Culture. Retrieved February 5, 2024, from https://www.mediaculture.com/insights/gen-z-psychographics