This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: When GCH assistant professor Rochelle Davidson Mhonde began working with adolescent survivors of sexual violence, she saw the ripple effects of their trauma: depression, anxiety, substance use and other health challenges. "Survivors often know what support they need to heal.
But when they don't receive it, the consequences can compound far beyond the original harm," she said. Trying to understand why some young people disclose their trauma while others don't led Mhonde upstream, studying the families, communities, cultural beliefs and institutional access that influence whether survivors feel safe speaking up. Across the College of Public Health, faculty are approaching the same fundamental question from different angles: How can we intervene earlier, when prevention has the greatest potential to make a difference?
At a time when many young people are facing rising rates of loneliness, isolation, anxiety and other public health concerns, George Mason researchers are working to redefine what prevention looks like. Traditionally, most prevention approaches are built around what adults believe young people need. Increasingly, college researchers are asking young people themselves to help create solutions.
"Young people know best what works for them and what doesn't," said Rima Nakkash, GCH professor and chair. "They can bring in their lived experience to inform interventions that are going to improve their health." This approach starts with recognizing young people's strengths. "In general, research on youth has taken a deficit approach," Nakkash said.
"But rather than seeing them as a problem that needs to be solved, we're viewing them as positive contributors to society." In one ongoing project supported by the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth, Ph.D. in Public Health student Omolayo Anjorin, GCH Professor Kenneth Griffin and Nakkash are examining why LGBTQ+ young adults vape at higher rates than their peers. Their research points to experiences like discrimination and rejection that increase stress and make vaping more likely as a coping mechanism. What was missing from existing prevention programs, according to participants?
"The first thing they said was, 'We want to see someone like us,'" Nakkash said. That feedback has helped Nakkash and her team rethink who delivers prevention messages and the language used. In some cases, researchers are also finding that young people can take on much larger roles.
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