Brian Will and Lindsay Lewis
55 minutes ago
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — College life can be incredibly stressful, from tuition to academics and everything in between, so UNLV is taking a proactive approach to student wellness with a system designed to spot problems before they become big problems.
“We want students to be able to check in on themselves emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually and relationally, and have the tools to help themselves when they need a little extra help,” explained Dr. Anne Weissman, director of well-being at the Kirk Kerkorian College of Medicine. “At the time, our school’s thinking about well-being included meditation sessions and yoga classes, but nothing as preventative.”
One tool they’ve introduced for a more proactive approach is Early Alert, a text-based service that periodically checks in with students on various aspects of their wellbeing.
The service randomly sends students text messages asking them to rate their health on a scale of 1 to 10 and then, depending on their response, can send them resources or connect them to crisis counselors who are available 24/7.
“When I meet with students and they get a text message, they often say, ‘Wow, that made me stop and think about how I’m doing,'” Dr. Wiseman explained.
By getting students to check in on themselves, and maybe each other, we hope Early Alert will do just that.
The check-ins see how students are doing across a variety of wellness categories, including emotional, physical, mental, sexual, financial, academic and relationship wellness. Overall, students’ wellness is good, with an average wellness score of 7.15 out of 10.
But Dr. Wiseman doesn’t want to just provide these tools to students.
“All of the health promotion work that we do in our schools, we want you to do it in your communities too. I truly believe we can transform the health of Nevadans in less than a generation,” Dr. Wiseman said.
Currently, the service is free to all UNLV graduate students.
