VCU news

By David Oglethorpe

For Virginia Commonwealth University’s freshman class, the first semester is a chance to adapt to college classes, discover campus organizations – and, this year, spit into a test tube. For the first time since 2021, Spit for Science – the nation’s largest genetic and environmental study of college students – will collect samples for a new cohort, and researchers hope to recruit more than 1,000 students.

Data collection for the new Spit for Science cohort will take place over the fall semester, with freshman students receiving email invitations to participate in the program.

Established in 2011, Spit for Science is based on VCU researchers collecting DNA samples and surveying students to understand what factors contribute to a range of issues, from development of problems linked to alcohol and other substance use to overall emotional health. With more than a decade of data, researchers now turn to the Spit for Science database every year to find answers to unique questions about the habits of college students.

One of the registry’s leading attributes is its sheer size. While many universities across the country support similar programs, their cohorts range from 100 to 300 students. Currently, Spit for Science has more than 13,000 students who have participated, and those registrants can be re-engaged even after they have graduated from VCU.

The database has resulted in hundreds of projects and studies, with numerous interdisciplinary working groups exploring topics such as protective factors that promote positive outcomes for LGBTQIA+ students, traumatic stress and mental health, and substance use disorder and recovery. The registry has also led to numerous spin-off studies examining the relationship between depressive mood and cigarette use, promoting social and mental well-being using social media, and better understanding the use of health services on campus.

“What’s different about the Spit for Science program is that it’s part of a larger ecosystem at VCU and beyond,” said associate professor of social work Karen G. Chartier, Ph.D., who leads Spit for Science as director of VCU’s Institute for Research on Behavioral and Emotional Health. “By making this data readily available, it feeds our undergraduate research programs, supports the interests of many VCU faculty and connects us with researchers across the country and the world. Studies of psychiatric conditions require very large samples, and our data is contributing a litany of studies combining data from many different sources.”

“The age of the traditional U.S. college student coincides with the emergence and escalation of common mental health challenges and substance and alcohol abuse,” said Kelsey Hagan, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry in VCU’s School of Medicine. “The S4S data are so important because they allow us to understand the expression of mental health and substance use symptoms over the course of college in a representative and diverse sample of students.”

She emphasized the diversity of the Spit for Science registry.

“My past research on eating disorders has been limited by the fact that a majority of participants have mostly been white, which perpetuates the harmful stereotype that eating disorders only affect white individuals,” Hagan said. “Our recent work suggests that certain eating disorder presentations disproportionately affect people of color.”

Spit for Science is supported by the Institute for Research on Behavioral and Emotional Health and the Cohort and Registry Administration Core, both of which are part of VCU’s Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation. The registry provides a unique and robust resource for early career faculty and faculty new to VCU who are building their research careers, and it serves non-university-affiliated researchers across the country.

Spit for Science also encourages students to engage in research during their academic career. The program does more than provide students with access to registry data – it also offers an experiential learning course and two undergraduate fellowship programs that provide mentored research experiences with VCU faculty members.

“I’ve always had an interest in genetics, so the database was something I thought would be a very valuable tool,” said Jhanay Davis, a recent graduate of VCU’s undergraduate biology program. “As a student, it’s important for me to be able to conduct research that impacts my fellow students because we are the future of research and the world. The world is changing, people are changing, and the best people to try to make sense of this are the ones who are living it.”