From education to empowerment: Redesigning the role of students in college health promotion

Abstract

College health promotion departments frequently employ peer health educators to disseminate relevant education and conduct outreach to their student body. While there are certainly benefits to these programs, this approach is outdated and does little to empower students or engage them in the process of health promotion. In this viewpoint article, I describe the Community Health Organizer model, which expands students’ role in peer engagement and advocacy beyond the traditional peer educator or peer counseling programs. Finally, I provide recommendations for college health practitioners interested in implementing a similar model on their campuses.

Keywords:

• Community health organizing
• health promotion
• peer health educators
• student engagement

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank her incredible team at the USC Student Health Office for Health Promotion Strategy for their guidance, expertise, and support.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The author has no conflicts of interest to declare. The Community Health Organizer program is not supported through grant funding. This paper has not been published elsewhere. The author, along with three staff members from the Office for Health Promotion Strategy, verbally presented a conference session about the Community Health Organizer role in the 2021 NASPA Strategies Conference.

Funding

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