The stigma surrounding mental health would be the first social issue that I would like to explore. When doing some preliminary research, I was fascinated to learn that there is actually a fair amount of recorded history on mental health. For my project, I will definitely be able to dive deeper into the history of mental health a bit more. According to the World Health Organization, in January 2020 they published that “depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide and is a major contributor to the overall global burden of disease,” (1) with over 260 million people suffering from a mental health illness, more specifically depression. This affects me because I am one of those 260 million people that has had to overcome struggles from depression.

The path I plan to take with researching this topic is to definitely focus on and mention the overall aspect of mental health in New Jersey while touching upon the United States as well, however taking it one step further and researching how mental health is perceived on college campuses by both students and faculty. This will allow me to examine how mental health and its effects vary among different economic classes, genders, races, and ethnicities. Most importantly, the main aspect of my project will allow me to see how my fellow peers feel when it comes to the topic during the years they are more prone to developing a mental health disorder due to the pressures of truly transitioning into adulthood.

Furthermore, it affects the community because of the insane number of people that are affected by mental health and because when mental health is left untreated or if the treatment is not working, the number of people who feel that suicide is the only option has unfortunately greatly increased, and is now, therefore, one of the leading causes of death in the United States. WHO also mentions that while mental health disorders are treatable, about 76%-85% of people that are diagnosed do not have the resources or even necessary funds to get the treatment which has been known for a very long time, yet not much has actually been done.

Another social issue that is very important to me is women’s rights, especially it comes to the pay gap. This is yet another topic in which most of society has acknowledged that there is a present gender disparity in the labor force, yet not that much significant action has been taken to truly solve this issue. One may say, wait, wasn’t there the Equal Pay Act of 1963 which was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy? Yes, however, according to numerous publications, women are still only earning seventy-nine cents for every dollar a man makes. AND this is not accounting for women of different races or people from different educational backgrounds.

Furthermore, within the past few years, there have been multiple class-action suits that argue against gender discrimination as well. For example, in April 2019 a group of women claimed that media giant Disney treats women extremely poorly and like cheap labor. (2) Similarly, in August 2018, four women who had worked for the athletic company Nike filed a class-action lawsuit acquired that Nike participated in activities that covered up sexual harassment and gender wage discrimination. (3) This affects both me and women of my community because as a woman myself, it is important that both genders are treated equally and given the same opportunities to grow. I have done research on this topic before and as mentioned earlier in this section, there are many statistics and a great deal of history to support the argument for women’s rights.

The final social issue that I would potentially research is government and political problems. This is an area in which I am probably most inexperienced but do have some background knowledge from an internship I had through the House of Representatives in the summer of 2019. While the internship did somewhat show me behind the scenes of being a Congressman and what goes into being a politician, what I saw most was the distrust that the people have in our government as a whole. When the government was first created, it was to help and better express the needs of the people. However, as it modernized, it seems that it has become more of a game and a competition.

According to a study done by the Pew Research Center in 2018, (4) 63% of Americans have very little to no trust in their elected officials. And the numbers only grow larger when looking at the people’s trust in major institutions. Not only do the people then feel uncomfortable with their officials for the time of their position, but Americans have also reported that this distrust prevents societal issues from getting solved as well. According to a New York Times Article, people believe that this distrust can be solved through electing officials that are “older, more educated, and had higher household incomes…” (5)

This effects my community and myself because it is very obvious that there are many pressing issues happening in our society, but the public and politicians need to come together in order to come up with a solution that will take time but overall improve the situations. A way this research can be conducted is by looking at trust in elected officials over the years and identifying what events took place at the time when trust sank. There are many statistics and studies done such as the one previously mentioned by the Pew Research Center.

References:

1. “Depression.” World Health Organization. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression.
2. Sam Levin, “Treated as Cheap Labor’: Disney Underpays Women, Lawsuit Alleges,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, April 4, 2019), https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/apr/03/disney-company-women-pay-gap-lawsuit).
3. Alexia Fernández Campbell, “Why the Gender Discrimination Lawsuit against Nike Is so Significant,” Vox (Vox, August 15, 2018), https://www.vox.com/2018/8/15/17683484/nike-women-gender-pay-discrimination-lawsuit).
4. “Distrust in America Viewed as Problem.” Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, December 31, 2019. https://www.people-press.org/2019/07/22/how-americans-see-problems-of-trust/.
5. Stevens, Matt. “Falling Trust in Government Makes It Harder to Solve Problems, Americans Say.” The New York Times. The New York Times, July 22, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/us/politics/pew-trust-distrust-survey.html.