Community colleges provide an affordable way for millions of Americans to achieve their educational goals. Currently, 11.5 million students, 46% of all US undergraduates, are enrolled at community colleges. Many students are from low socioeconomic backgrounds and many work while attending college, both of which lead to a more challenging college experience. Indeed, many community college students do struggle academically, and a large proportion do not finish their program of study. An area of particular concern is community college students'health. As well as concerns about general health, many students binge drink, and there are particularly high rates of smoking, and use of marijuana, cocaine and amphetamines. Consequences for students include increased disease risk as well as an even more difficult learning experience. Arguably, this college population is in the greatest need of wellness and alcohol and other drug (AOD) prevention programming. However, community college students are, in a sense, an invisible population. They are virtually ignored in the literature;as such, students'health needs are not discussed, and indeed, are not met. Community college students are offered very few, if any, health resources. In part, community colleges cannot afford to provide extensive resources. But additionally, no commercial programs appear to be geared towards community college students. A cost effective, comprehensive wellness, and AOD prevention program is needed. It should specifically address the community college population, be tailored to specific needs of community college students, and serve as a link to community resources. We propose to develop an interactive, online health intervention for community college students focusing on wellness and AOD prevention. MyStudentBody-Community College will use Web 2.0 technology to offer students articles, skill- based courses, assessments, tools, courses, and links to community resources. It will be tailored to the individual needs of students by taking into account psychosocial, behavioral and demographic information provided by the student. Our review of available college health websites suggests that no site is tailored to community college students and it will thus represent a significant advance in healthcare options for community college students. The goals for the program are to: increase self-efficacy for managing stress;increase knowledge about AOD;increase wellbeing, and decrease alcohol and drug use. The content and intervention model will be developed through consultation with community college health staff, community college students, and institutional decision makers. Institutional decision makers will also be involved in developing implementation plans. We will use interviews to determine key domains of information. We will seek feedback from students, community college health staff, and institutional decision makers on the feasibility of the Phase I concept through a review of a demonstration program. If the program is successful, it will have a significant public health impact by improving the health of community college students.
Currently, 11.5 million students, 46 percent of all US undergraduates, are enrolled at community colleges. This college population is, arguably, in the greatest need of wellness and AOD prevention programming;however, community college students are offered very few, if any, health resources. We propose to develop an interactive, online wellness and AOD prevention website, which, if successful, will have a significant public health impact by improving the health of community college students.
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