‘We Need To Think about How We Can Close That Gap’: BHA Shares Community Health and Well-Being Survey Results

Though a high percentage of New Canaanites responding to a recent survey say they live in financial comfort, with most participating in high numbers in sports and faith-based groups and volunteering generously, nearly half (47%) are unsure or unaware of where to seek help for mental health issues, officials say.

And an even higher percentage of respondents (55%) don’t know where to seek help for substance use issues, according to the widely anticipated results of the 2024 Community Health and Well-Being Survey.

“We do understand that we don’t expect there to be 100% awareness around all of these issues, as most people would go seek help when they’re faced with that particular issue,” Nina Chanana of Chanana Consulting told about 100 people who attended the first public presentation of survey results, held Monday night in the Jim & Dede Bartlett Auditorium at New Canaan Library. 

She continued: “But we did feel that there were opportunities to raise awareness for some of the supports that are out here in New Canaan. … Those residents who indicated their concern about their own substance use were less likely to be aware of the supports around substance misuse available to them when compared to those who did not have any concerns. Respondents who reported poor mental health were also less likely to be aware of supports for adult mental health services in New Canaan than those who reported ‘strong’ or ‘good’ mental health. And then finally, when we looked at community members who reported feeling threatened by or unsafe around someone living in their home, they were also less likely to be aware of services, supports and counseling related to domestic violence.”

The findings come from a survey that ran in October and received 1,490 respondents. An initiative conceived by the New Canaan Behavioral Health Alliance, a group of 30-plus local organizations that seeks to make it easier for residents to access behavioral health information and resources, the survey was completed by people 18-and-older, about 98% of whom reside in New Canaan (the remaining roughly 2.6% of respondents are parents with at least one child in New Canaan). Chanana administered the survey alongside the BHA. Females responded in higher numbers (75% versus 25% for males, with one resident who identified as non-binary or transgender), according to the survey results. (The results will become available online within the next two weeks, officials say.)

During the presentation, attendees received an overview from Chanana and also heard from New Canaan Community Foundation President and CEO Lauren Patterson, Silver Hill Hospital Director of Community Relations Susannah Lewis, Silver Hill President and Medical Director Dr. Andrew Gerber, New Canaan Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi, New Canaan CARES Executive Director Colleen Prostor and Leo Karl III, representing NCCF’s Behavioral Health Committee. They were followed by comments and questions from attendees. 

The survey was designed to gather information on involvement, knowledge and use of community-based supports, knowledge of resources related to mental health and substance use, barriers to health services, safety, life satisfaction, well-being, anxiety and depression, financial stability, discrimination, and prevention-based topics. Those include laws, adolescent brain development, community norms and access to substances. The survey also had a section for any parent with at least one child living at home with topics related to youth protective factors, the child’s mental health and family norms. 

In discussing “Community Norms around Prevention,” Chanana noted that there’s strong support in New Canaan for prevention programs, with 93% of respondents saying prevention is a good investment. Yet about half of all respondents believe that underage drinking is a normal part of growing up (20% said the same of cannabis use). 

Parents also were asked in the survey to assess their child’s past year anxiety and depression in the past year.  

“Overall, 16% reported their child is struggling with persistent anxiety in the past year,” she said. “Similarly, rates of depression increase with the age of the child and overall 10% of parents reported that their child struggled with persistent depression in the past year. We also know—I know—that parents often under-report their child’s mental health status when you compare this type of data to a youth-reported mental health question. So I think to really get an accurate picture of this you need to supplement this parent perspective with direct data from the youth themselves.”

The survey also asked parents if they knew where to go to get help if their child was struggling with a mental health issue, and one in three said they were unsure or they did not know where to go. 

“So we need to think about how we can close that gap, considering ways to share local mental health resources,” Chanana said. “We need to continue to build our partnerships, like this amazing group here in the Alliance, and work with our schools and community organizations to create accessible and easy-to-access resources and materials.”

Luizzi in his remarks noted that while important conversations have sprung up in the last couple of years around substance abuse, mental health “has taken that top tier of concern where we’re really talking about what are this generation’s proclivities, what are they interested in, what are they doing?”

“And we’ve seen, often, a drop in some of the socialization that you might have expected in a school say 10, 15, 20 years ago,” he said. “Kids aren’t going out as often as they used to. They’re not getting together in the same way. The school dances aren’t attended as they used to be, things like that. So we see the things that they aren’t doing, yet they’re communicating online. They’re talking to each other via technology.”

He then provided background on the district’s focus on emotional intelligence, including the work of Student Support Coordinator Dr. Susan Bliss and the Yale “RULER” system.

“And we really took to that because we found that this is a system and a program and something we can teach students that they don’t just turn on in the morning when they arrive at school and turn off at the end of the day,” Luizzi said. “But it’s something that can have a positive impact on their lives 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And we also liked it very much because we felt that it wasn’t just something that adults do to kids. We all can improve our emotional intelligence. I work at it every single day, some days more than others. And it improves the quality of our lives through our relationships, through our self-awareness, and the work that we do. So we started back in 2017, putting design teams together and doing this work in our schools, and we spent an entire year helping our adults to learn the skills of emotional intelligence.”

That included working with not just teachers but also cafeteria staff, custodians, teaching assistants, bus and van drivers, Luizzi said.

“Everybody, all the adults spent an entire year in training to become better at the skills of emotional intelligence,” he said. “And we did that because we wanted to make sure that our schools were welcoming places everywhere kids went, so that it wasn’t disjointed. Because if you think back to your own experience in school, I know mine, I’d go into some classrooms and I’d feel welcomed and open and connected and a deep relationship with that teacher. Then I’d go to another one and it wasn’t as emotionally intelligent and I just couldn’t wait till that class ended. And we didn’t want our kids to have that experience.”

One of the district’s goals, he said, is to ensure that every student feels “connected to our schools.”

“That they feel they have a place there,” Luizzi said. “Even during the shutdown of COVID, one of our guiding principles was that every student feels connected. They feel like a Ram at the high school or an East eagle or wherever they are, but that they know they have a place there. So we look to develop the clubs and activities that we have. We have close to 70% of our students that participate in sports individually at the high school, which I think is wonderful. We have hundreds of students that are participating in drama. We’ve got hundreds of clubs and activities for kids, and we do work very hard to try to keep them connected.”

The school district also is constantly seeking to do more to ensure that students feel that way.

“And as we do that work, we’re always thinking: How do we best partner with the community, how do we get the parents involved? How do we help them to come with us? Because no matter what we’re doing in school, we want to make sure that it also continues outside of school. Again, the emotional intelligence taught us a lot around that, but we want to make sure that we do this work in partnership. We do think a lot about social media, we think a lot about technology, and it really is—for us with our kids, it’s about empowerment. Empowering them to make the right choices. Empowering them to know they’re the ones in charge of the decisions that they make. And it’s a world that is really vying for their attention everywhere they go. It’s a very hard time.”

It’s a hard time to be a parent, he said, as well as to be a kid, “because their experiences are fractured in so many ways by so many things.”

“And so we want to really make sure that we are a constant in their lives,” Luizzi said. “And by being constant they can trust us, they know us, there’s a place for them where we are. And that the schools are places that they have to be. I know some of them come in because they have to, but we want them all to come in because they want to be there. And that’s where they feel welcome and appreciated and supported.”

Residents’ confusion about resources for mental health issues is a concern given additional findings from the survey. 

One part of it, the Patient Health Questionnaire for Depression and Anxiety or “PHQ-4” is a screening scale of anxiety and depression, consisting of four statements relating to the past two weeks. Each statement is rated on a 4-point scale, with lower scores indicating better mental well-being. On the PHQ-4, 34% of all respondents scored as having some level of distress (mild to extreme) while 8% are at risk for moderate or severe mental stress. Rates are similar for males and females. For the depression and anxiety subscales a score of 3 or more is considered positive for screening purposes. Five percent of respondents scored a 3+ in the depression subscale with similar rates reported among females and males. Sixteen percent scored 3+ in the anxiety subscale with higher rates reported among females (17%) versus males (14%). 

Also, according to survey results shared with NewCanaanite.com, the World Health Organization’s “Five Well-Being Index” is a self-reported measure of mental well-being. It includes five statements about the past two weeks, rated on a 6-point scale, with higher scores indicating better well-being. A score below 50 suggests poor mental well-being and indicates the need for further assessment for a potential mental health condition.

Among New Canaan survey participants, 21% scored below 50 (indicating a potential health condition) while 79% scored above 50. Males and older residents (60-plus) reported better overall well-being.

Additional findings include: 

Community Involvement

• Males are more involved in civic groups, whereas females participate more in parent, social, and volunteer groups. Involvement in civic, cultural/arts, faith-based, and volunteer groups increases with age, while engagement in parent and recreation/sports groups declines. 

Community-Based Supports

• Males are more likely to be unaware of supports related to food assistance, education, mental health, parenting, and immigrants/refugees. Gaps around awareness are particularly notable among 30-39- year-olds and 40-49- year-olds.
• Nearly half of respondents (47%) are unsure or unaware of where to seek help for mental health issues, while 55% report the same for substance use issues. Females are more likely than males to know where to access help for both. Awareness varies by age, with younger and older respondents less likely to know where to seek support. Additionally, those who have lived in New Canaan for less than five years are less aware of available resources for mental health and substance use treatment or support.

Information Sources

• The highest percentage of participants obtain information about health and well-being resources from news media sources (71%), followed by community organization communications (66%) and town office communications (63%). Nearly half use social media (49%) and school communications (42%). 
• Younger respondents and those who have lived in New Canaan less than 5 years are more likely to receive information from school and social media sources, while older residents are more likely to receive information from community organizations, news sources and the Town of New Canaan. 

Access to Care

• Most respondents (66%) reported no barriers to accessing physical or mental health services in the past 12 months. Among those who did face obstacles, the most common were difficulty securing an appointment (17%), cost (14%), and providers not accepting their insurance (12%). 

Level of Concern on Issues Related to Mental and Emotional Well-Being

• Participants ranked their level of concern on mental and emotional well-being issues for themselves, other adults in New Canaan, and New Canaan youth, using a scale from 1 (“not at all concerned”) to 4 (“very concerned”). Respondents expressed greater concern for youth and other adults across all nine categories. For youth, top concerns were social media, smartphone use, and stress/anxiety. 

Discrimination

• Fifteen percent of respondents reported lifetime discrimination related to age and socioeconomic status, 11% related to gender identity, 10% to religion or culture, 8% to race or ethnicity, 3% to disability, and 2% to sexual orientation. 

Safety

• Most participants reported ‘always’ feeling safe at home, in their neighborhood, and in the community. Additionally, 91% said they ‘never’ feel threatened or unsafe around someone in their home.

Access to Substances

• The highest percentage of participants (95%) believe underage youth can easily access alcohol from their home or a friend’s home. This is followed by vaping devices (88%), tobacco (87%), alcohol from other sources (80%), marijuana (79%), and prescription drugs not prescribed to them (64%).

Knowledge of Mental Health & Substance Use Supports for Child

• Thirty-three percent of parents are unsure or unaware of where to seek help for mental health issues for their child. For substance use issues, 65% are unsure or unaware of where to seek help.

Now that the survey results are in hand, officials at the presentation said, the BHA will share them with more groups of residents and stakeholders, receive feedback, and then the community can work on how best to act on the information.