How Age Affects Mental Health
People tend to assume that getting older is awful and depressing, which is not surprising in our youth-oriented culture. The good news is that recent research (including work in our lab) suggests that mental health tends to improve as we age. In addition to documenting these improvements and understanding why they occur, our lab is also interested in mental health problems that can occur in later life, such as anxiety, depression, social isolation, and loneliness.
Mental Health Service Use
It is truly unfortunate that the majority of those of us who have diagnosable mental disorders do not seek professional help, even though effective interventions are available. It is even more unfortunate that certain groups, notably older adults, are especially unlikely to seek professional help when they have clinically significant mental health problems. Our lab has a long-standing interest in exploring barriers to mental health service use for older adults.
Stigma
A particular focus of research in our lab related to mental health service use is stigma. We have shown that although many people think that older adults are less likely to seek mental health services because of stigma, this is not entirely true. Several publications from our lab show that older adults actually perceive less stigma in relation to seeking mental health services than younger adults. However, stigma is still a barrier for older adults and we have a number of recent publications exploring moderators of a theoretical model of internalized stigma of seeking help among older adults.
Men's Sheds
Men's sheds started in Australia in the late 1970s and officially started in 1998. Since that time the Men's Sheds movement is growing internationally, with the first Canadian Shed starting in Winnipeg in 2011. Sheds are grassroots groups run primary by men, for men, to support men's health and well-being. Our lab was involved with a project, funded by Movember Canada, aimed at helping Men's Sheds in Canada to grow by developing: (a) a toolkit to help new groups start sheds, and (b) a website to connect shedders across the country and internationally: https://menssheds.ca