Research projects.

Dr. Samek has led the AU College Experiences and Beyond Study and data collection efforts starting in 2015 and continuing today.

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The original purpose of this College Experiences Study was to evaluate risk and protective factors for alcohol use disorder onset and course in the first two years of college. Comprehensive survey data was collected from 209 first year Auburn University students (90% white, 62% female) in the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 academic years. This cohort was subsequently followed up in the 2019-2020 academic year, in effort to identity what factors in the first year of college predicted a stable course of problematic alcohol use that potentially co-occurred with stable depressive symptoms over a period of approximately four years. Results showed personality factors related to negative affect, poor sleep, and stress were most relevant to a course of stable depressive symptoms, whereas antisocial/substance-using peer affiliation, romantic partner alcohol use, and baseline substance use was most relevant to a course of stable alcohol use disorder symptoms. Dr. Samek reported such findings support individually-tailored prevention/intervention, including screening for personality-based programs.

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In 2020, Dr. Samek reflected and interrogated her research program in conjunction with her commitment to advance anti-racism, equity, and inclusion. To extend her research on mostly white populations and to elevate the voices of BIPOC students and to better understand their experiences, Dr. Samek recruited a diverse sample of first year college students in the 2021-2022 academic year (N = 191, 69% BIPOC, 52% female, 16% LGBTQ+). Dr. Samek's goal was to better understand the potential psycho-social risk and protective factors for BIPOC mental health and potentially co-occurring problematic alcohol use based on relevant theory and recent studies. Results showed that experiences of microaggressions and poor campus climate were directly associated with internalizing symptoms (depressive, anxiety, somatic), as well as indirectly through factors related to stress, poor sleep, and academic burnout. Such results underscore the need for predominately (historically) white universities and colleges to take efforts to teach White students, staff, and faculty how to identify, disrupt, and reduce racial microaggressions in effort to promote BIPOC student mental health and improve campus climate for all.

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Dr. Samek was awarded funding for an extension of this project in 2022-2024. We collected data from another cohort of diverse (~80% BIPOC) first-year AU students (N = 191, 2022-2023) academic year) and are wrapping up data collection for our follow-up assessment of the first year cohort (2021-2022 academic year) approximately two years later (2024). We aim to further evaluate what is driving the increase in mental health symptoms for adolescents and emerging adults as they transition through college. Central hypotheses include that 1) increased frequency and intensity of social media use, particularly in times of heightened attention to national and global traumatic events (e.g., school and mass shootings, war, police violence, climate change) as well as increased 2) academic pressure and 3) poor sleep may be contributing to the increase in stress and mental health challenges at this time. Dr. Samek will also explore whether this is especially the case for students with politicized and underrepresented identities (e.g., BIPOC, LGBTQ+) while accounting for experiences of discrimination and microaggressions. We will also explore these risk effects in the context of potential protective factors (e.g., social support, campus club involvement). We would like to study these hypotheses in the wider population of adolescents and young adults in the years that come.