Mental health in STEM fields

STEM professions are known for cultivating high-stress environments. Often, employees work long hours, face deadlines, and deal with scientific explorations that have high potential for failure. The reigning pressure to publish isn’t helped by metrics that measure journal impact and citations, while publications still dominate the list of criteria for promotion and merit raises. The process of peer review can be brutal, and funding is scarce, meaning that rejection is common. It goes without saying that the STEM workforce is also susceptible to problems found in any workplace, like bullying, poor management, interpersonal conflict, and turnover. These stressors negatively affect mental health overall.
Moreover, in addition to the nature of the work, those who are underrepresented (e.g., women [6], persons excluded from science for ethnicity and race [7], LGBTQ individuals [8]) face overt discrimination, harassment, and microaggressions at alarming rates. Such toxic work environment leads to burnout over time, resulting in the loss of exceptional contributors to the STEM discipline.