The UK Healthy Universities Self-Review Tool: Whole System Impact.

Mark Dooris,Maxine Holt,Alan Farrier,Sharon Doherty,Robert Monk,Susan Powell

doi:10.1093/heapro/daw099

Abstract

Over recent years, there has been growing interest in Healthy Universities, evidenced by an increased number of national networks and the participation of 375 participants from over 30 countries in the 2015 International Conference on Health Promoting Universities and Colleges, which also saw the launch of the Okanagan Charter. This paper reports on research exploring the use and impact of the UK Healthy Universities Network’s self review tool, specifically examining whether this has supported universities to understand and embed a whole system approach. The research study comprised two stages, the first using an online questionnaire and the second using focus groups. The findings revealed a wide range of perspectives under five overarching themes: motivations; process; outcomes/benefits; challenges/suggested improvements; and future use. In summary, the self review tool was extremely valuable and, when engaged with fully, offered significant benefits to universities seeking to improve the health and wellbeing of their communities. These benefits were felt by institutions at different stages in the journey and spanned outcome and process dimensions: not only did the tool offer an engaging and user-friendly means of undertaking internal benchmarking, generating an easy-to-understand report summarizing strengths and weaknesses; it also proved useful in building understanding of the whole system Healthy Universities approach and served as a catalyst to effective cross-university and cross-sectoral partnership working. Additionally, areas for potential enhancement were identified, offering opportunities to increase the tool’s utility further whilst engaging actively in the development of a global movement for Healthy Universities.

Highlights

Universities are important organisations for health promotion, as contexts and vehicles for enhancing wellbeing, and as partners in multi-sectoral health improvement and contributors to societal change (Dooris et al, 2012)
Of the eleven universities that reported having used the self review tool (SRT), two had used it twice, eight had used it once and one did not respond to this or further questions
Data are presented under five subheadings, using the global themes generated through thematic analysis: motivations; process; outcomes/benefits; challenges/ suggested improvements; and future use

Summary

Introduction

Universities are important organisations for health promotion, as contexts and vehicles for enhancing wellbeing, and as partners in multi-sectoral health improvement and contributors to societal change (Dooris et al, 2012). It has been argued that a Healthy University “aspires to create a learning environment and organisational culture that enhances the health, wellbeing and sustainability of its community and enables people to achieve their full potential” (Dooris et al, 2010) It acknowledges its role in ‘future shaping’ students and staff as they clarify values, grow intellectually and develop capabilities that can enhance current and future citizenship. Underpinned by principles such as partnership, equity, participation and empowerment, the Healthy Universities approach aims to be proactive in planning for health and achieving impacts and long-term outcomes in relation to both public health and core business agendas (Dooris et al, 2012), through: creating healthy and sustainable learning, working and living environments for students, staff and visitors integrating health and sustainability as multi-disciplinary cross-cutting themes in curricula, research and knowledge exchange contributing to the health, wellbeing and sustainability of local, regional, national and global communities

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Results

Conclusion