Sharon Doherty

Healthy universities—time for action: a qualitative research study exploring the potential for a national programme

Despite the absence of national or international steers, there is within England growing interest in the Healthy University approach. This article introduces Healthy Universities; reports on a qualitative study exploring the potential for a national programme contributing to health, well-being and sustainable development; and concludes with reflections and recommendations. The study used questionnaires and interviews with key informants from English higher education institutions and national stakeholder organizations. The findings confirmed that higher education offers significant potential to impact positively on the health and well-being of students, staff and wider communities through education, research, knowledge exchange and institutional practice. There was strong support for extending the healthy settings approach beyond schools and further education, through a National Healthy Higher Education Programme that provides a whole system Healthy University Framework. Informants argued that although there are important public health drivers, it will also be necessary to show how a Healthy Universities can help achieve core business objectives and contribute to related agendas such as sustainability. Two models were discussed: an accreditation scheme with externally assessed standardized achievement criteria; and a flexible and light-touch framework focusing on change-related processes and utilizing self-assessment. While highlighting the appeal of league tables, many informants feared that a top-down approach could backfire, generating resistance and resulting in minimal compliance. In contrast, the majority felt that a process-focused aspirational model would be more likely to win hearts and minds and facilitate system-level change. Key recommendations relate to national programme development, research and evaluation and international collaboration and networking.

Healthy Universities: current activity and future directions - findings and reflections from a national-level qualitative research study

This qualitative study used questionnaires to scope and explore ‘healthy universities’ activity taking place within English higher education institutions (HEIs). The findings revealed a wealth of health-related activity and confirmed growing interest in the healthy universities approach — reflecting an increasing recognition that investment for health within the sector will contribute not only to health targets but also to mainstream agendas such as staff and student recruitment, experience and retention; and institutional and societal productivity and sustainability. However, they also suggested that, while there is growing understanding of the need for a comprehensive whole system approach to improving health within higher education settings, there are a number of very real challenges — including a lack of rigorous evaluation, the difficulty of integrating health into a ‘non-health’ sector and the complexity of securing sustainable cultural change. Noting that health and well-being remain largely marginal to the core mission and organization of higher education, the article goes on to reflect on the wider implications for future research and policy at national and international levels. Within England, whereas there are Healthy Schools and Healthy Further Education Programmes, there is as yet no government-endorsed programme for universities. Similarly, at an international level, there has been no systematic investment in higher education mirroring the comprehensive and multifaceted Health Promoting Schools Programme. Key issues highlighted are: securing funding for evaluative research within and across HEIs to enable the development of a more robust evidence base for the approach; advocating for an English National Healthy Higher Education Programme that can help to build consistency across the entire spectrum of education; and exploring with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) the feasibility of developing an international programme. (Global Health Promotion, 2010; 17(3): pp. 6—16)

Applying the whole-system settings approach to food within universities.

Universities represent an important setting for promoting health and well-being – and specifically for developing systems that support healthy and sustainable food procurement and provision. By drawing on the whole-system settings approach and working within the framework offered by Healthy Universities, higher education institutions are in a strong position to address the full range of issues that make up the university ‘foodscape’, thereby promoting health in an integrated and far-reaching way that takes account of the relationships between environments and behaviours, and between staff, students and the wider community. Informed particularly by work in England, this paper uses a healthy settings model to explore and discuss how the Healthy Universities approach can help to ensure a holistic and integrated approach to addressing issues relating to food.

The Application of Salutogenesis in Universities

This chapter focuses on how health can be created, maintained and supported in university settings. It first explores the higher education context and introduces key concepts that underpin ‘healthy universities’ and the application of a settings approach within this sector. While it can be argued that there are semantic differences between terms such as ‘health promoting settings’ and ‘healthy settings’, the reality is that they have often been used interchangeably. For the purposes of this chapter, the term ‘Healthy Universities’ is used throughout, even though the discussion draws on literature that has used a diversity of terminology, including ‘Health Promoting Universities’ and ‘Healthy Campus’. It then presents a summary of key developments and of theoretical and empirical research in the field, reflecting on the relationship to salutogenesis, before discussing key themes emerging and outlining challenges for the future.

The UK Healthy Universities Self Review Tool: Whole System Impact

Abstract 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.