Five overlooked dimensions of campus wellness: Qualitative lessons from a Health Sciences Center’s wellness program evaluation

Abstract

Objective: Successful university wellness programs approach wellness holistically and regularly assess for improvements to program offerings. This case-study reports five lessons learned from a university wellness program evaluation that must be considered when developing wellness programming. Participants: Faculty, staff, and students at a public university health sciences center. Methods: A 23-question electronic survey with open-ended questions was administered to measure feedback on current and future wellness programming. Responses were analyzed with an open coding approach into five themes for program improvement to more holistically address wellness. Results: The five improvements to wellness programming identified by respondents were: wellness offering awareness, workplace culture and environment, racial representation, wellness programming policy enforcement, and creating an environmentally friendly campus. Conclusions: Themes identified in this case-study require additional attention by university wellness programs to ensure they are equitably accessible and comprehensive in their offerings.

Keywords:

• Health facilities
• health promotion
• wellness program

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of United States of America and received approval from the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Institutional Review Center Campus Assistance Program.

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [N.K.], upon reasonable request.

Ethical approval statement

The Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-New Orleans’ IRB was consulted and approved the use of survey data included in this publication.