Health Data on CPP Students

Student Health Services is actively engaged in addressing the health concerns of Cal Poly Pomona students through clinical services, disease prevention and health promotion programming. Underlying these service activities is the collection of information on the health problems, behaviors, and perceptions of students. Two previous surveys shed light on key health concerns impacting our students' success.

National College Health Assessment (NCHA)

The National College Health Assessment (NCHA), was developed by the American College Health Association as part of a national effort to assess factors impacting academic performance, retention, and campus life. The survey is administered to college students across the nation and our results can then be compared to the national data (Please contact Ty Ramsower for a copy of the Executive Summary from the Spring 2007 data).

Some of the significant findings of the NCHA are:

• Mental health issues such as stress, sleep difficulties, relationship difficulties, and depression have the most significant impact on academic performance.
• Cold, flu, and sore throat, frequent reasons for visits to the Student Health Services, are the second most common causes of poor academic performance among all college students.
• The use of alcohol causes a negative impact on academic performance, even though alcohol use by Cal Poly Pomona students is lower than the national sample.
• Sexually active Cal Poly Pomona students are almost twice as likely as the national sample to not use contraceptive methods.
• Cal Poly Pomona students experienced some symptoms of depression, including serious consideration of attempting suicide more than the national sample.
• Cal Poly Pomona students tend to have more credit card debt than the national sample.
• Incidents of violence are lower for Cal Poly Pomona students than the national sample.