Tag: individual health education

Four ways to give healthy living advice to college students

Riko Dwianto, 10/10/2025

Self-guided health and wellness resources can benefit college students.

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In a spring 2023 Student Voice survey from Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse, 49 percent of students rated their mental health as fair or poor. Over half (56 percent) of students reported having experienced chronic stress while in college, and three-quarters (74 percent) said stress was negatively impacting their ability to focus, learn and do well in school.

Despite college students having an overwhelming need for health support, not every student is able to find or be interested in scheduling an appointment with a counselor.

Data from telehealth provider TimelyCare found half of college students using the platform don’t engage with a provider; instead they engage with self-care resources or peer community resources. Of the million sessions on the platform in the past year, over 400,000 interactions have been with self-care content, says Bob Booth, TimelyCare’s chief care officer.

So What?

Investing in mental health resources is not just a retention concern for institutions but also a recruitment strategy. Student responses to Inside Higher Ed

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AI and public health – a major opportunity

Riko Dwianto, 06/10/2025

Hospitals and health systems are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence technologies built into health IT such as EHRs, telehealth services, remote patient monitoring and other tools that can expand access to care and improve health equity.

At the same time, conversations around AI safety and regulatory measures are happening around the globe, including a major recent executive order issued by President Biden.

As AI becomes embedded in the daily lives of people across the country, learning how to best use the technology while prioritizing security and equity – both on the individual level and more broadly – is paramount.

Researchers at the University at Albany’s School of Public Health are actively exploring ways that artificial intelligence and machine learning can be applied to public health, to improve health outcomes for patients while prioritizing patient safety and data security.

Xin Wang is an assistant professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University at Albany. His areas of expertise include artificial intelligence, deep learning, precision medicine and medical image computing, among other related subjects.

Here he shares his thoughts on how public health researchers can support the development of safe and effective health-centered AI.

Q. Where do public health and

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Future doctors need a strong humanities education

Riko Dwianto, 29/09/2025

If you want an argument in favor of teaching the humanities, I suggest you ask a medical educator.

Across the US, the age-old debate about the value of a liberal arts education has seemingly devolved into mortal combat, leaving the humanities in dire straits on college campuses. For example, the Atlantic recently reported on West Virginia University’s decision to gut its humanities programming, and the New York Times wondered whether the liberal arts would exist after the budget cuts happening in higher education. The burgeoning movement to defund (perhaps even defenestrate) the liberal arts is not only capricious and hasty, but also remarkably short-sighted. As a former medical school dean, I know the liberal arts are not only more relevant than ever; they are critical to the future of health and health care in America.

Today’s students, looking to justify the cost of tuition, are choosing college majors based on the likelihood of gainful employment upon graduation. “Fewer than one in 10 college graduates obtained humanities degrees in 2020, down 25 percent since 2012,” the Hechinger Report, an education publication, reported in 2021. In 2023, the New Yorker published a feature titled “The End of the English Major .”

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State politics, industry drives planetary health education for K-12 students in US, finds study

Riko Dwianto, 03/06/2025

State politics, industry drive planetary health education for K-12 students in US — Educational science standard quality across the United States (A) is represented by each state/territory composite score. The inset box shows composite scores for Washington, DC (topleft; DC), American Samoa (top right; US), Guam (bottom left; GU), and Puerto Rico (bottomright; PR). States and territories that have fully adopted the Next Generation Science Standards are outlined in bright green. The deviation from the mean for each state or territory’s science standard composite score (B) is shown along with its major political affiliation. Credit: Samantha L.R. Capel

As much of the US broils under record-setting temperatures, battles wildfires and is rocked by fierce storms, a new study suggests that the science learning standards for many public schools are not preparing young people to understand and respond to problems such as climate change that will dramatically impact their lives and those of millions of people around the globe.

Published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciencethe findings raise troubling questions about political bias shaping if and what the nation’s youth are learning about looming environmental crises and what these portend for the Earth’s inhabitants.

The quality and depth of the information that today’s K-12 students receive on planetary health

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