In today’s world where many of us often share our most personal and private information online, status messages and photos posted on Facebook and other social media websites are providing health care professionals with an access point to identifying individuals at-risk of causing harm to themselves and others. One recent study from the University of Wisconsin, for example, shows how verbal and visual clues taken from Facebook profiles, such as references to drunkenness, can help health care professionals identify college students who are at risk of developing alcohol abuse problems. Now, a study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine is providing a different twist on how using the Internet can make a difference in the health and well-being of college students.
The new study, published in this month’s issue of Preventing Chronic Disease, examines the websites of 426 colleges, including both small and large, 2- and 4-year institutions, in an effort to characterize how colleges use their web sites to educate about and promote health. The study conducted by J. Jane S. Jue, MD, MSc, a former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at Penn and Joshua P. Metlay, MD, PhD, a professor in the division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, suggests that many colleges and universities are missing out on this opportunity to make a difference in the health and well-being of students.
In examining the collegiate web sites, Drs. Jue and Metlay looked for the presence of information related to four major health categories: general health, reproductive and sexual health, substance abuse, and mental health. Each health category was further subdivided into specific content areas such as asthma and depression. Researchers also identified three web-based health delivery modes, including health information provided directly on web sites, outside web links to other health-related websites, and interactive web-based health programs such as online assessments or file available to download.
Though the study showed that nearly 60 percent of U.S. colleges provided health resources on their websites, it also revealed a lack of information on some of the more important topics facing college students. For example, young adults are the age group at highest risk for weight gain. Despite the weight management concerns and increasing interest in hitting the gym or cutting carbs seen in young adults, fewer than 10 percent of colleges provided online health resources related to nutrition or physical activity, and very few nutrition-related interactive web-based health programs were provided. The researchers call that a missed opportunity.
Additionally, statistics published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that nearly 21 percent of adults 18 years of age and over currently smoke cigarettes. Many of these high school-aged students arrive at college already addicted to cigarette smoking. Despite tobacco use being the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, and some polls that claim nearly 70 percent of smokers actively want to quit, less than 10 percent of colleges surveyed offered health information and only 1.5 percent offered interactive web-based health programs related to tobacco use cessation.
Targeting behaviors among college students by providing health resources on the web may be a promising avenue to tackle two of the CDC’s priority “winnable battles,” but the study’s authors say there’s much left to be done.
“The lack of Web-based health resources in tobacco use cessation, nutrition, physical activity, and weight management represent missed opportunities in the prevention of chronic diseases of adulthood,” said Dr. Jue. “These preventable illnesses are relevant to young adults during the period when many health behaviors are solidified.”