As complex environments within which individuals and populations operate, universities present important contexts for understanding and addressing health issues. The healthy university is an example of the settings approach, which adopts a whole system perspective, aiming to make places within which people, learn, live, work and play supportive to health and wellbeing. The UK Healthy Universities Network has formulated an online toolkit, which includes a self-review tool, intended to enable universities to assess what actions they need to take to develop as a healthy university. This paper presents findings from consultative research undertaken with students from universities in England, Scotland and Wales, which explored what they believe represents a healthy university. MethodsStudent surveys and focus groups were used to collect data across eleven universities in England, Scotland and Wales. A priori themes were used to develop our own model for a healthy university, and for the thematic coding phase of analysis. FindingsA healthy university would promote student health and wellbeing in every aspect of its business from its facilities and environment through to its curriculum. Access to reasonably priced healthy food and exercise facilities were key features of a healthy university for students in this study. The Self Review Tool has provided a crucial start for universities undertaking the journey towards becoming a healthy university. In looking to the future both universities and the UK Healthy Universities Network will now need to look at what students want from their whole university experience, and consider how the Self Review Tool can help universities embrace a more explicit conceptual framework. ConclusionThe concept of a healthy university that can tailor its facilities and supportive environments to the needs of its students will go some way to developing students who are active global citizens and who are more likely to value and prioritise health and wellbeing, in the short and long term through to their adult lives.

Over recent years, there has been growing interest in Healthy Universities, evidenced by an increased number of national networks and the participation of 375 participants from over 30 countries in the 2015 International Conference on Health Promoting Universities and Colleges, which also saw the launch of the Okanagan Charter. This paper reports on research exploring the use and impact of the UK Healthy Universities Network’s self review tool, specifically examining whether this has supported universities to understand and embed a whole system approach. The research study comprised two stages, the first using an online questionnaire and the second using focus groups. The findings revealed a wide range of perspectives under five overarching themes: motivations; process; outcomes/benefits; challenges/suggested improvements; and future use. In summary, the self review tool was extremely valuable and, when engaged with fully, offered significant benefits to universities seeking to improve the health and wellbeing of their communities. These benefits were felt by institutions at different stages in the journey and spanned outcome and process dimensions: not only did the tool offer an engaging and user-friendly means of undertaking internal benchmarking, generating an easy-to-understand report summarizing strengths and weaknesses; it also proved useful in building understanding of the whole system Healthy Universities approach and served as a catalyst to effective cross-university and cross-sectoral partnership working. Additionally, areas for potential enhancement were identified, offering opportunities to increase the tool’s utility further whilst engaging actively in the development of a global movement for Healthy Universities.

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