There is a growing cry for help from graduate students across the globe who struggle with significant mental health concerns. Despite increased discussion of the topic, there remains a dire need to resolve our understanding of the mental health issues in the trainee population.

Recent research on mental health in the trainee population has focused on within-insti- tution cohorts, such as the 2014 UC Berkeley report, which found that 43–46% of graduate students in the biosciences were depressed, and the 2015 University of Arizona report, which found that a majority of doctoral students reported “more than average” current stress or “tremendous” stress and endorsed school and education-related issues as the most significant contributors to their stress. Although these studies demonstrate the mental health concerns in this population, more research is needed to better define the prevalence of mental health issues and the role of key variables such as gender, mentorship relationships and perceived work–life balance on susceptibility to mental health struggles in the trainee population.  Read more.