Beijing health promoting universities: practice and evaluation

Abstract

The aims of this study were to create a health promoting university within the framework of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. Strategies included reforming and issuing healthy policies, creating a healthy physical and social environment, developing personal health skills, reorienting the health services, and implementing intervention activities. To evaluate the study, 180 students and 120 teaching/administrative staff were sampled for an in-depth interview with open-ended questions administered 1 year after the launch of the project. To assess health knowledge and behavior, 2500 students were sampled to answer a questionnaire, both prior to and following project implementation. With respect to policies, environment and health services, 166 students and 117 teaching and administrative staff participated in the in-depth interview. Approximately three-quarters (75.90%) of university students considered that the physical environment of the campus had improved significantly and 83.73% reported they had a good social environment. All university administration departments made commitments to health promotion. Consultations on mental health, smoking cessation and STD/AIDS prevention were provided all year round. Health education was included in a curriculum as a selective course with 1-2 credits. Almost two-thirds (60.66%) of teaching/administrative staff reported that they had had a yearly physical examination. In the final stages of the research, significantly more college students reported improved mental health (38.25% compared with 17.93% at baseline) (p < 0.01) and more were knowledgeable about transmission of STDs/AIDS (57.00/35.50% compared with 51.66/28.20% at baseline, respectively) (p < 0.01). Significantly less regular smokers were found (45% compared with 15.81% at baseline) (p < 0.01). However, there was a significant increase in high-fat food intake (44.81% compared with 49.50%) (p < 0.01) and pre-marital sex (5.11% compared with 14.00%), and a significant decrease in physical exercise participation (29.41% compared with 23.50%) (p < 0.01). As a health promotion setting, the university community can benefit greatly from implementing health promotion campaigns based on the principles of the Ottawa Charter.

Theorizing healthy settings: a critical discussion with reference to Healthy Universities

“…26 references -relating to the UK, China, Germany, Hong Kong and the USA -conformed to the inclusion criteria. Of these, 15 were authored or co-authored by Dooris or Dooris et al [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] and a further seven cited Dooris or Dooris et al [24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. This reflects the relative youth of Healthy Universities as a movement and there was, not surprisingly, a high degree of congruence amongst the papers with regard to the theories and conceptual frameworks deployed.…”

Socio-demographic predictors of health behaviors in Mexican college students

“…In sum, the main findings of this study revealed that a high percentage of college students do not exhibit healthy behaviors, and these can be predicted to some extent by social characteristics. Improving and protecting college students' health and developing health-promoting universities is one of the goals of the World Health Organization (Tsouros et al, 1998;Xiangyang et al, 2003). This should also be a goal for states and universities.…”

The Handbook of Salutogenesis

“…The 'Healthy Universities' systemic and holistic approach is commended and should be adopted as widely as possible. Xiangyang et al (2003) report on the development of health promoting universities across Beijing, acknowledging Fig. 23.2 Healthy Universities-A whole system approach.…”