AA PROCiRAM FOR HEALTH A N D HIG H ER E D U C A T IO N
Association
o f American
Colleges and
LEARNING FOR OUR COMMON HEALTH
Universities O C C A S I O N A L P A P E R
College Students as a Challenge and an Opportunity for Public Health:
Summary o f the 2001 Sumner Symposium
of the Program for Health and Higher Education
ince its founding in 1995, AAC&U Program for Health in
S Higher Education (PHHE) has advanced these central
ideas about the relationships among students, health, and
learning in college:
Attention to complex, challenging health issues strength
ens the relationship of colleges and universities with their
students in regard to health, learning, and citizenship, and
can improve outcomes in each area.
Fruitful discussion of pressing public health concerns
requires engagement across academic disciplines and
integration among the traditionally separate structures of
academic and student affairs.
Achieving better health outcomes for all requires a focus
not only on scientific facts and epidemiological data, but
also on deeper human questions about the self, relation
ships, community, culture, and the obligations and respon
sibilities of individuals and societies; the scholarly, intel
lectual resources of higher education are vital to explor
ing those questions.
Improving health (in any community, including college
campuses, and for all individuals, including college stu
dents) demands thinking of health in collective terms, as
community property; understanding the social and cul
tural contexts of health and health decisions; and allocat
ing resources toward community-based, rather than pure
ly individual, interventions.
Through its campus projects and dissemination strategies,
PHHE has brokered original partnerships that have demonstrat
ed and applied these ideas in an extraordinary variety of pro
grams in more than thirty colleges and universities. Using other
assumptions and different models, foundations, government
agencies, higher education organizations, and individual institu
tions have also designed progntms intended to improve the
health of college students. But, as a nation, we have not made
the health of college students a high priority; we lack a strong
commitment to addressing health on campus, a coordinated
1
V O L U M E 1 2 0 0 1
strategy to improve health among students, andmost impor
tanta focus on the capacity of students themselves to con
tribute to solving health problems.
With those needs foremost in mind, PHHE, supported by the
Centers for Disease Contn)l and Prevention (CDQ, organized a
symposium to initiate a vital national conversation about college
students as both a challenge and an opportunity in public
health. On May 10, 2001 in the restored Washington school that
bears the name of the distinguished senator and abolitionist,
Charles Sumner, this first Sumner Symposium brought together
students, college presidents and student affairs officers,
researchers and scholars, leaders in college health, representa
tives of national organizations in higher education, officers of
philanthropic foundations, and elected officials to explore core
questions and suggest the most important steps to take in
response. ("Central Themes" on page 7 provides a summary of
the Symposium conclusions.) To fully understand the conclu
sions reached at the Sympo.sium, it will be helpful to have a
broader understanding of the context of its discussions.
Americans believe strongly in the value of higher education. As
individuals, families, states, and a nation, we have made extraor
dinary investments to make higher education available to all.
Most colleges and universities are tax-exempt, and we provide
tax relief and financial aid to help students and their families pay
for the costs of college. Confident that the scientists and schol
ars on our campuses can find answers that will enliven our
understanding, enrich our experience, and solve important
problems, we provide, through federal sources, billions of dollars
in grants and contracts to colleges and universities every year.
Most of all, though, we believe in students: we know they are our
future, and we grant them a special experiencecollegewith
which to sharpen their minds, broaden their understanding,
refine or renew their skills, and prepare for leadership. No mat
ter their age, degree program, or life history, we feel proud of
them; we entrust to them our history, the best of our resources,

Robert I'ulUloiv, Columbia Unwersity; Richard Keeling, Journal
of American (;ollcgc Health. ' T a m m y Baldwin (D-WI); Jennifer
Suveney, aide to Ms. Baldwin, attending a pre-symposium dinner.
and our greatest hopes. As graduates, their beliefs, actions, and
commitments will have the power to determine our course as a
nation, our priorities as a society, and our legacy' as a culture.
As Americans, we also have made enormous investments in
health and health care, and we believe that good health, like
good education, should be accessible to all, though we have not
yet marshaled the social and political will to distribute health
care as equitably as we do higher education. Our colleges and
universities prepare the great majority of the clinicians,
researchers, and allied health professionals who provide our
health care, discover ways to relieve suffering, and improve our
opportunities for greater health. We depend on institutions of
higher education to lead us as we search for solutions to the
pressing health concerns that affect all of us, from epidemics to
poverty. Convinced that good health improves learning and that
learning can improve health, American collegesalmost
uniquelyprovide specific, dedicatetl clinical, counseling, and
prevention services for their students. We recognize .students
health opportunities as much as we understand their potential
for leadership.The two, in fact, are connected: We hope college
prepares students not only to live healthier lives, but also to
influence the health status of their peers, families, and friends.As
graduates, after all, they will have the power to determine the
health of our nation, and the world.
At the same time, we are, as Americans, fearful about the health
and well-being of college students. We think of college students
as amazingly strong, vigorous, and healthybut we also know
their health is at risk. Their medical problems generally seem
uncomplicatedmostly episodic minor illnesses and injuries.
But students most important and significant health issues, con
cerns, and needs arc not primarily medical matters. High-rLsk
drinking, experimentation with recreational drugs, smoking,
sexual behavior that creates the risk of sexually transmitted dis
ease or unwanted pregnancy, violence, behaviors that may cause
accidents and injuries, disorders of body image and eating, and a
variety of psychological challenges, including depression and
suicide, are far more significant; any of them can undermine
learningcreating academic morbidity and mortalityand
endanger the health and lives of individual students and others
around them.When the parents of new undergraduates dispatch
their children to the custody of colleges, it is those desperate
health outcomes they most dread. It is the immediate and later
consequences of health risk behaviors that make prevention so
important in higher education.
Still, many Americanslike many leaders, teachers, and health
care providers in higher educationrealize how difficult a task it
is to influence health-related behaviors among college students.
Preci.scly because they are in college, students experience a chal
lenging health cnvironment.Tliink of the campus customs and tra
ditions that affect drinking behavior and of the torrent of alcohol-
related messages in advertising, entertainment, and students digi
tal world. Consider the pressures that campus lifeand the
extended communities an>und campuses, in the media, and on
the Webimpose on .students as they explore relationships, sex
uality, and identity. Cx)nncct students desire to find a place for
themselvesto fit in, to build a kind of communitywith their
opportunities to drink, smoke, use drugs, or have unprotected sex.
Filter all of that thnjugh the struggle for individuation, independ
ence, and adulthood, and remember that higher education is by its
very nature exploratory and expansiveliberal, in the literal
sense of the wordrather than narrow or restrictive.All of that is
college, and college provides one of the most persuasive demon
strations of the influence and relevance of social, cultural, and
community factors in
heidth. When we speak of
the health of college stu
dents, we mean not just
what is noted in their per
sonal medical records, but
alsoand moretheir
common health. The
health status of students
as a populationtheir
Darlene Saunders, UNCF Special
common healthdeeply Programs, and Lloyd Kolbe, Centers J'or
affects the health status Disease Control & Prevention listening
to Sumner panelists.
of each one.
To suggest that many (and, among college students, most) health
problems are not primarily biological and that the determinants
of those problems have collective roots is to redefine health in
social, cultural, and community' terms. Doing so docs not abolish
the concept of individual responsibility, nor does it relieve indi
viduals of accountability' for their choices. It docs, however,
change our focus. If health is a collective property', then it is also
a community responsibility. If many of the factors that influence
health are social and cultural, then the behavior of communities
(and society more generally) is a health concern. Instead of
directing all our health resources to encouraging individual
behavior change (as if individuals make isolated decisions and
have complete personal control), we should then allocate
resources toward understanding and influencing the "behavior"
of groups - communities and cultures. We begin to design sys
tematic, rather than individual solutions; we imagine collective,
rather than purely personal, action.
Seeing both the causes and the solutions of health problems as
centered in community or cultural terms returns health to the
realms of public responsibility, public discussion, and public
health as it was originally defined. Doing so centers health in
civic and campus life and encourages participator)' solutions.
This is, of course, where students enter the equationnot as
risks, but as assets, as producers of knowledge and developers of
solutions. Students who are engaged with health issues and pre
pared to manage their own health and health care while in col
lege may, as graduates, strengthen the priority our country
assigns to good health and high quality health care for all.
Pictured a t left is Rep. T am m y B aldw in (D-WI) addressing
p a rticip a n ts a t the pre-Sym posium dinner. M elvin Galloway,
a recent graduate o f M ia m i University, is pictured a t right
p w sen tin g a t Sumner.
We confront, then, an inescapable paradox: College students, as
one of our countrj s greatest and most cherished assets, will be
an important resource in addressing important concerns in
health care, health policy, public health, and the health of the
world; and college students also have certain patterns of health-
related behaviors and risks that can impede their academic suc
cess, harm themselves and others, and undermine the common
health of campus communities.They are, then, both a challenge
and an opportunity in public health.
It is this paradox that generated the central questions addressed
by the first Sumner Symposium:
To what extent are college students a definable cate
gory of people with specific health-related character
3
istics? What health conditions have exaggerated preva
lence or severity, or unique features, among college stu
dents?
Would remediation of certain health conditions during
college result in decreased morbidity and mortality?
How can colleges intervene more comprehensively to
improve the health of students? Wliat larger societal
benefits might derive from enhancing the health status
of college students?
What additional informa
tion do we need to
imprt)vc our understand
ing of college students as
a challenge and an oppor
tunity in public health?
Mow can we identify and
disseminate the most
effective prevention and
health promotion strate
gies? What are the best Henry Wechsler, Harvard
University, presenting bis
ways for colleges to en work at Sumner.
gage students in address
ing key issues of health and well-being?
How can collegesand our nationtake greater
advantage of students as a resource for improving our
common health? What leadership can students offer
during and after collegein addressing pressing
national and global health issues?
What priority should the health of college students
have among the nations health concerns and oppor
tunities? What are the elements of a sound national
strategy to focus greater attention and resources on
students as a challenge and an opportunity in public
health?
On the evening preceding the Symposium, Congresswoman
Tammy Baldwin, who represents the second district in
Wisconsin, emphasized the importance of answering these
questions and developing our health interventions in partner
ship with students. Throughout the presentations, panels, and
discussions the next day, the Symposium explored ways to work
together with students to address their specific and pressing
health pn)blems within the academic and cultural contexts of
campus life while engaging them in active learning about the
unresolved issues of our common health as a nation, addressing
health problems in communities and the world.
It is easy to imagine that all college studentseveryone enrolled
in an institution of higher educationare national health assets.
Traditional age undergraduates, returning adult learners, people

Listening to S u m n e r presentations, are Laura K ann, Centers
fo r Disease Control & Prevention; iMra Iximprecht, Public
Health S tudent Caucus o f the A m erican Public Health
Association; a n d Ira H arkaiy, U niversity o f Pennsylvania.
pursuing first or second degrees later in life, and graduate and
professional students, whether enrolled in community colleges,
four-year colleges, or comprehensive universities, can contribute
wisdom, creativity, and common sense to our collective search
for better personal and common health. Both during college and
later, students (individually, and as groups) can have material
influence on health-related decisions made by their families,
neighborhoods, and communities and on health programs and
policies determined through health care corporations, civic-
agencies, not-for-profit organizations, and government.
It is more difficult to sort out the challenges of health in college,
because it is not easy to specify exactly wh<j a college student
isan issue with which the Symposium struggled at length.The
problem (if we want to call it that) is that college students are
not only more numerous, but also far more diverse demograph-
ically, than they were in the past. Consequently, influencing the
health of college students means affecting the health of a larger
and larger proportion of our young people. Certainly, anyone
enrolled in college at any age has health risks. But the particular
pattern of health risk behaviors and challenges that we associ
ate with college pertains primarily to traditional age undergrad
uates, who arc men and women, ages 18 to 24, enrolled full- or
part-time in public or private, two or four-year institutions of
higher education. From the point of view of health, then, college
student refers to a stage of life that is defined both chronologi
cally (by age) and situationally (l-)y enrollment in college).
Traditional-age undergraduates represent a large and growing
population that is increasingly similar to the whole pt>pulation
of 18 to 24 year olds in the United States. More than two-thirds
of our high school graduates now matriculate in college, and
higher percent will do so by 2005. Although college students
are not completely dcmographically representative of the entire
4
population of 18 to 24 year olds, they no longer represent a nar
row demographic category defined by race, sex, and socioeco
nomic status.This is true because;
A larger proportion of female and Black high school
graduates are enrolling in college,
A larger proportion of Black and Hispanic adolescents
now graduate from high school, and
While more youth from all backgrounds are attending
college than was true thirty years ago, the increase has
l>een greater for youth from poor than affluent families.
('ollege students who are traditional-age undergraduates have
different health-related characteristics than their same-age
peers; they also have different health-related characteristics than
older or returning undergraduates and graduate or professional
students. Undoubtedly this is the case, in pan, because patterns
of health risk behavior among college students emerge from
similar patterns established during high school. But the chal
lenging health behaviors of college students are not equally dis
tributed among them by sex, race, or sexual orientation. Binge
drinking, for example, is far more common among men than
women iuid among White than Black students; smoking is less
prevalent among Blacks than Whites.
The Symposium made it clear that we need far more informa
tion. Our knowledge of health behavior patterns among stu
dents is certainly more textured and complete than it was a
decade ago, but there are serious weaknesses in it, especially in
regard to correlations among various behaviors and the rela
tionships of student or institutional characteristics to health
indicators and behaviors. We know relatively little about the
effectiveness of interventions to change health-related behav
iors among students. And it is not clear that we know enough
about how to deploy effective programs in different settings,
once they are identified and proven. Diligent research, of sever
al kinds, is essential;
Descriptive studies; How do different educational set
tings and purposes influence the health characteristics
and behaviors of students? What are the particular
health concerns of students in community colleges?
How do mental health problems among college stu
dents affect their health behaviors?
Intervention research; How might understanding the
factors that result in different rates of smoking or
binge drinking among different ethnic groups help us
design better prevention programs? How can academ
ic programs be successfully used to address important
health issues? What is the cost-effectiveness of pro
grams that attempt to reduce health risk behaviors
among college students? How can we customize effec-
 tivc programs to fit different institutional contexts?
Methodological investigations: How can we best col
lect reliable data from college students and institutions
of higher education? What role might college students
themselves play in designing and conducting good
research?
The need not just for more studies, but also for a comprehensive
national research agenda, emerged as the Symposium consid
ered the limitations of our existing knowledge. Our investments
in research need to become increasingly strategic, better coor
dinated, and more focused on demonstrating reproducible, scal
able benefits on campus and in communities.
During the presentations, panels, and discussions of the
Symposium, the value of higher education as a platform for
improving the nation s health arose as a central theme.As more
18 to 24 year olds go to college, the scope of the public health
challenge expandsbut the opportunity increases as well.
Colleges have the chance to affect the health-related knowledge,
attitudes, and behaviors of a large and increasingly representa
tive group of young Americans. Two-thirds of all deaths among
Representing n a tio n a l stu d e n t associations, K im berly
S u ed ka m p Wells, N a tio n a l Association o f (.{raduate-
Professional Students (left) a n d Corye Barbour, U nited
States S tu d en t A ssociation (right), addressing the Su m n er
Sym posium .
adults aged twenty-five or over result from cardiovascular dis
ease and cancer, the development and progression of hoth of
which are strongly influenced by health risk behaviors estab
lished during youthtobacco use, unhealthy dietary patterns,
and inadequate physical activity. In college, it is possible to
address both personal choices in health risk behaviors and their
social and cultural context; campuses are, in many ways, pre
vention laboratories from which we can learn how to modulate
the psychological, physical, and social factors that create prob
lems in both personal and common health. The academic pro
grams and offerings of colleges and universities can be used to
reduce students health-related risks. And, as PHHE has shown,
attention in college to unresolved, complex health issues (such
5
as HIV/AIDS) as important, multidimensional public problems
can support and improve undergraduate education. Courses,
service learning projects, research activities, integrative learning
experiments, and independent study provide a flexible and var
ied framework for addressing issues of our common health.
Attending to the health of students and preparing them to
respond effectively and thoughtfully to shared health con
cernswhether in their communities or in other countries
are important roles for colleges, and they arc consistent with the
mission of higher education, which is as much to improve the
quality of life as it is to educate.
Colleges, then, like college students themselves, are important
resources in effons to improve the common health. They edu
cate and influence students, prepare health care professionals,
and conduct essential research. But their reach extends earlier in
life, as well; thn)ugh the teachers they educate in undergraduate,
graduate, and continuing education programs, they have an
important influence on the health of children and adolescents.
And colleges, as respected institutions in society, can increase
the publics concern about our common health, mobilize social
resources to improve health, and influence debates about health
policy.
Two conclusions shaped the work of the Symposium:
First, that the health of college students should be high
on the nations agenda, and that a multi-faceted strate
gy to address the health of college students is neces
sary, and
Second, that students are as much an opportunityan
assetas a challenge in public health; we need better
ways to engage them in solving important health prob
lems in their communities and throughout the world.
Preserving and promoting the health of college students can
protect the investments our society makes in higher education.
Our collective belief in the value of educationand in the
potential of our studentsjustifies giving serious attention to
health on campus. By improving the health of students, we can
reduce both health-related morbidity and mortality and academ
ic morbidity and mortality; we prevent unnecessary losses and
advance the mission of higher education. Colleges and universi
ties provide a natural setting for these efforts; both the tradi
tional health infrastructure of campuses and their academic pro
grams, services, and projects can be used to enhance the com
mon health of campus communities and improve the health
status of individual students.
But just as the Symposium revealed the need for a coordinated
research agenda, it showed the importance of a concerted

national strategy. National leadership and support can strength
en and extend the work now being done on individual campus
es, through higher education organizations, and in research and
intervention projects funded by foundations and government
agencies. Greater collaboration among the philanthropies, high
er education and health organizations, and government will fos
ter more attention and quicken our progress. Effective and con
vincing communications strategies would rouse public concern
and support a national commitment to addressing the health of
college students.
At the same time, we need a different emphasisand, in fact, a
renewed relationship with students themselves.We cannot con
tinue regarding students exclusively as risksas dangerous to
their own health and the health of others. Because of our belief
in them and their stake in our collective future, we must find
respectful, authentic ways to partner with them, engaging them
in addressing both critical campus health concerns and the
pressing health issues of our increasingly global .society While
we want always to acknowledge students' particular vulnerabil
ities, we must equally take full advantage of their power to solve
their own health problems and, in so doing, to develop the
capacity to assist others in improving health. Imposing unwel
come and poorly conceived programs, broadly restricting their
freedom, or disparaging their value and potential will not suc
6
ceed. We cannot force students into bet
ter health. But they have the power to
help find workable solutions that will
improve health for us all.
This first Sumner Symposium traced
only the outlines of a national agenda for
addressing college students as both a
challenge and an opportunity in public
health. It provided an important plat
form for a review of our current knowl
edge, and an impetus for additional
research. It revealed the common inter
est of students, colleges, and the public in safeguarding our
nation's investment in higher education through bmader, more
strategic attention to health issues in campus communities.The
Symposium offered a model for future discussions that material
ized our belief in students as assets, resources, and creators of
new knowledge. It articulated our uncertainties but also gave
shape and substance to our hopes. PHHE will develop a
"Proceedings" reporting the discussion and conclusions of the
Symposium: from the event will come other publications, a
series of future meetings (including a second Sumner
Symposium next Spring), and a stronger network of researchers,
colleges, higher education organizations, foundations, govern
ment agenciesand students. Most of all, the Symposium creat
ed exactly the kind of visibility,
reciprocal commitments and
accountability that support the gen
eration of political and social will.
Enlisting the power that students
possess to engage actively around
issues of health could greatly
enhance the nation's ability to
improve our common health.
Richard R Keeling, MD, Senior Scholar, AAC&U, and Editor,/ourwo/ o f
American College Health
 C entral T hemes
1. College students are both a challenge and an opportunity in
public health.,Students themselves hold the greatest potential
for unproving health on campus and in our communities.
Their beliefs, actions, and leadership will have the power to
determine the health of our nation and the world.
a. Traditional age (18 to 24 year old) undergraduates
have unique health-related characteristics, especially
certain patterns of health behaviors that affect individ
ual morbidity and mortality, academic achievement,
and the common health of campus communities.
b. More generally, college students of all ages enrolled in
every kind of institution of higher education are assets
to the nations health; they are an important resource
in addressing pressing issues in health care, health pol
icy, and public health.
2. College provides a unique opportunity to address the health
behaviors, health risks, and health status of young Americans.
a. Traditional age undergraduates are a growing popula
tion who represent a increasing proportion of 18 to 24
year olds in the US. About 60 percent of young adults
attend college by age 25 today. The number of 18 to 24
year olds will significantly expand over the coming 15
years; therefore, even if college participation rates sim
ply remain unchanged, undergraduate enrollments will
clearly rise. Funhermorc, if historical and economic
trends continue, college participation rates will likely
continue increasing, so that a larger fraction of youth
will experience college by age 25.
b. Traditional age undergraduates are not completely
demographically representative of the entire popula
tion of 18 to 24 year olds, but they are far more so than
in the pa.st.They no longer repre.sent a narrow demo
graphic category defined by race, sex, and socioeco
nomic .status. For example, while more youth from all
backgrounds arc attending college than was true 30
years ago, the increase has been greater for youth from
poor origins than for affluent youth.
c. The mission of higher education is both to educate
and to improve the quality of life; attending to the
health of students and preparing them to address
pressing problems of our common health are impor
tant roles for colleges.
d. Colleges, through educating teachers, preparing health
professionals, and addressing health concerns in their
7
teaching and research, have an important influence on
the health of children and adolescents.
e. Colleges are important and influential resources that
can help lead our efforts to improve the common
health.
3. Much additional information is needed to produce a com
prehensive understanding of the major unsolved community
health problems among students and to determine the most
effective prevention and health promotion strategies.
a. We need additional, definitive survey research to
describe college students' health outcomes, track
trends in their risk behaviors, Identify health policies
in place on our campu.ses, and understand the preven
tion programs and activities being used to improve stu
dents' health status.
b. We need a richer understanding of the differences in
health characteristics among various categories of stu
dents in collegestraditional age undergraduates, non-
traditional undergraduates, returning adult students,
distance learners, and graduate and professional stu
dents.
c. Our knowledge of the most useful and reliable ways to
collect data from college .students and institutions of
higher education is limited; we need to be able to
select the best research methods to answer our ques
tions. We need to determine how we can most pro
ductively and respectfully involve students themselves
in developing and implementing the most important
re.scarch.
d. We need to understand the relationships among stu
dents health-related behaviors and issues. For example,
many traditional age college students have psychologi
cal concerns, including depression, suicide, and disor
ders of body image. These concerns intersect with
important health behaviors in ways that are not fully
defined. And binge drinking, one of the most important
public health problems on campus, is associated with
violence, at-risk sexual behavior, and dLsordercd eating.
It is not yet possible to define and characterize those
relationships precisely.
e. We need well-planned and carefully conducted inter
vention research to define the efficacy and cost-effec
tiveness of programs that intend to reduce priority
health risk behaviors among college students.
 opportunity and a challenge in public health is a way
of focusing attention and priority on the most funda
mental issues of young adulthood. By doing so, the
nation can strengthen the ability of young people to
become engaged, contributing citizens who help solve
important health problems in their communities and
throughout the world,
e. Institutions of higher education, philanthropic founda
tions, and government can contribute and partner in
developing effective programs that address students'
specific and pressing health problems within the aca
demic and cultural context of campus life,
f National leadership and support can strengthen a
broad, multi<ampus response,
The Charles Sumner School. Washington D.C., site o f the Sumner g. We need to develop effective and convincing commu
Symposium nications strategies that support these efforts.

f. It is essential that we be able to define the characteris
tics of effective prevention programs in higher educa
tion, and we need to understand the best and most
scalable dissemination strategies.
4. The health of college students should be high on the nations
agenda; a multi-faceted strategy to address the health of col
lege students is necessary.
a. Preserving and promoting the health of college stu
dents may protect the large investment students them
selves, their families, communities, lending agencies,
states, and the federal government make in higher edu
cation.
b. Improving health for college students reduces both
health-related morbidity and mortality and academic
morbidity and mortality; both health and educational
outcomes improve.
c. The case for greater attention to college students as a
challenge and as an opportunity in public health is
compelling, and requires a comprehensive strategy.
d. Investing in traditional-age college students as an
5. The nation must support colleges in focusing attention and
resources on students as lioth a challenge and an opportuni
ty in public health, especially through efforts that produce
demonstrable results and outcomes on campus and in com
munities.
a. College pnwides a uniquely appropriate and practical
setting for engaging students, as citizens and future
leaders, in active learning about unresolved issues of
our common health and in addressing health problems
on campus and in communities.
b. Both the traditional health infrastructure of campuses
and their academic programs, services, and projects
can be used to enhance the common health and
improve the health status of individual students.
c. Emphasis must shift from efforts to control and limit
the freedom and potential of students to approaches
that acknowledge students' particular vulnerabilities
but take full advantage of their power to solve their
own health problems, and, in so doing, to develop the
capacity to assist others in improving health.

The Program for Health and Higher Education is funded by a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), Division of Adolescent and School Health, Atlanta. Georgia.The contents of this publication are solely the responsibility
of PHHE and do not necessarily represent the official views of the CDC.

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