The Enduring Influence of Higher Health on the Development of Health and Wellness Centers Within Campuses

The last ten years have been characterized by unprecedented developments within the sphere of student health and wellness. Higher Health spearheads the incorporation of student health and wellness as integral components of each institution’s success agenda. This paradigm shift within the integration of student health and wellness is closely linked to the innovative services and programs offered by Higher Health. Most importantly, the organization focuses on wellness as a fully inclusive ecosystem that promotes the integration of purpose and community alongside mental and physical health.

The Development of a New Approach to Wellness on Campuses

For many years, college health centers operated chiefly within a reactive paradigm. Students and community members received services a flu shot, wellness counseling, or a health assessment during midterm on a largely as-required basis. Recently, many social and health issues have arisen that need an active response by institutions. Increasing depression and anxiety, distractions from digital devices, social isolation, and inequity and exclusion are expanding the understanding of wellness in and on campuses.

Institutions are now seeing that wellness is not a service — it is a culture. This transition has allowed organizations like Higher Health to redefine a modern, successful campus community. Higher Health advocates for holistic networks rather than compartmentalizing wellness support services. The systems that they promote include physical health, mental strength, social health, and environmental health.

Higher Health’s Holistic Vision

At its essence, Higher Health is grounded in the idea that well-being underpins learning, growth, and connection with other humans. The organizations’s belief system also supports an integrated model for well-being, which includes community design, physical health, mental health, nutrition, movement, and mindfulness in its overall idea for well-being.

Higher Health’s philosophy is founded on three guiding principles:

Prevention before intervention – Creating environments that foster healthy behaviors and gaining the natural support of the community before a crisis.

Equity and Inclusivity – Develop wellness resources that are accessible and able to represent all student experiences that provide culturally competent support.

Community as Medicine – A person’s overall mental and physical health relies on a sense of belonging and purpose.

By embedding these principles into Higher Health’s work with colleges and universities, they have helped transform campuses from a reactive health to a proactive student-centered ecosystem.

Transforming Physical Spaces into Wellness Hubs

The transformation of campus environments is about the most visible impact of Higher Health’s work. Many universities are working with the organization to convert their “health” centers into “wellness” hubs, which is a paradigm shift to the model.

Instead of sterile waiting rooms, students may use waiting rooms that are open, light-filled, and tailored for relaxation and community interaction. Integrated with meditation zones and healthy cafés, resource centers provide users with opportunities to engage in active living. The design of these environments instills in students the idea that wellness is a practice that should be incorporated into one’s everyday life.

Higher Health also emphasizes the creation of wellness spaces with a lens of sustainability and universal design features. Use of sustainable building materials, gender-inclusive restrooms and sensory friendly spaces recognize the diverse and unique needs of each student and support the individual benefits to health that come from these spaces, as well as the benefits to the overall healthy community and sense of belonging on campus.

Integrating Mental Health into All Conversations

Mental health is not treated as a clinical, and thus not standalone, matter; it is part of every conversation happening on campus. Faculty and staff are looking for student distress, there are peer support programs, and mindfulness practices are being integrated into classroom experiences and residence halls. Higher Health strives to create a culture of mental health literacy that invites students to seek support long before there is a crisis.

Beyond the programs’ primary focus, students are offered workshops on emotional intelligence, resilience, and stress management – core competencies that serve them well after graduation. The goal is to foster an atmosphere whereby mental wellbeing becomes as ubiquitous to daily practices as attending classes and studying in groups.

Nurturing a Culture of Belonging

Higher Health’s initiatives acknowledge campus activities in their entirety; substantially more than the five realms of wellness. Studies have shown that feeling perceived, valued and connected are the strongest predictors of engagement and retention. A majority of students, especially students from under-represented backgrounds struggle to find their sense of belonging in higher education.

In working with campus leaders, we are integrating wellness programming that is inclusive and multi-culturally diverse as a foundational set of qualities of belonging. This can be in the form of community peer mentoring, health education that is culturally tuned, and wellness celebrations of identity events.

With an emphasis on belonging as a component of community wellness, Higher Health helps educational institutions create the best ecosystem for students to thrive rather than simply survive.

Data-Informed Innovation and Impact

Higher Health distinguishes itself in the field by its emphasis on evidence-based practice. Through the use of advanced data analysis and surveys of students, Higher Health continually evaluates the impact of their programs throughout the semester, while simultaneously making adjustments to strategies in real time. When campuses target and monitor key indicators of care such as stress, engagement, and overall satisfaction, they have the ability to very quickly change what they do.

When it comes to data analytics, benchmarking value for services, and identifying service impact within an organization, focus absences, academic performance, and retention rates. This generates positive, quantifiable results. Feedback from partner universities reflects improvements in student health, but goes beyond individual wellbeing to encompass community health and campus culture.

A Model for the Future of Higher Education

There is the evolution of global health and wellness paradigms, and incorporated holistic wellness and wellbeing perspectives in academic practices and structures. Students expect more from education institutions: Higher Health is the best working example of the potential for integrative health service provision and practice.

Karen Staneva said: “A focus on health… results in more engagement and stronger retention within the community.” This is especially true of values-driven staff and students, and in a context of rapidly changing global mental health, social and climate inequity discourse. Higher Health is the best working example of a focus on integrative health service provision.

Changes in Campus Wellness: The Impact of Higher Health for a New Generation

There has been a remarkable shift within higher education content in recent years to wellness being at the core of student experience and engagement. The leader of these changes is Higher Health in Canada, which has changed how universities and colleges think about wellness, belonging and community. From inventive programming and inclusive design to innovative data-based approaches, Higher Health is making a real and long-lasting effect on campuses around the country – affecting not only how students find care but how they experience the entire college experience.

1. Changing Definition of Wellness

Perhaps the greatest impact of Higher Health is its ability to change the very definition of wellness. Traditionally, college health centers have a narrow focus on physical care – vaccines, first aid, and occasional counseling. Higher Health realized that student wellness goes far beyond the clinic.

They understand student’s well-being as composed of physical, emotional, mental, social and environmental health. With this understanding of flexibly defining and reframing learning, Higher Health has prompted a number of post-secondary institutions to reconsider their forward-facing and proactive posture. You can see this shift in the relationship with the resources on the campus.

Students now have a systems approach to well-being which has helped make a change in their awareness. They are now looking for ways to be proactive in their personal well-being – this is a significant cultural shift from where they were previously, based in a reactive systems approach to well-being.

2. Making Spaces Accessible and Inclusive

Another notable impact of Higher Health’s work is the physical change in campus spaces. Working with colleges and architects, Higher Health has turned traditional health centers, living spaces, and recreational spaces into engaging wellness environments.

No longer are students confronted with sterile, anxiety-provoking medical facilities; instead many campuses have now created usable, natural light-filled, inviting campus wellness spaces complete with counseling spaces, fitness studios, nutrition bars, and relaxation spaces all designed to attract engagement, not illness stigma.

Just as important, Higher Health has also committed to accessibility and equity. Higher Health has driven equity in wellness spaces on campuses to ensure that all students, regardless of ability, gender identity, or cultural background, can find wellness. Facilities that are gender inclusive, sensory friendly spaces, and multilingual health resources have become staples of Higher Health-style projects.

3. Promoting Mental Health as a Campus-Wide Priority

Mental health problems of college students is reportedly one of higher education’s growing concerns. Rates of anxiety, depression, and burnout have significantly risen in the last decade, exacerbated by social disengagement and digital drain. Higher Health is providing measurable change in approaches to mental health issues by colleges and universities.

Mental health is interwoven into the fabric of all of campus life. Faculty, counselors, and peer helpers could receive training so that they would know how to identify signs of distress and intervene if necessary. A new academic programming is being implemented as part of a broader goal to promote mental health as are workshops that address emotional wellness, mindfulness and strategies to manage anxiety.

As a result, mental health is becoming more of a shared responsibility, notwithstanding how that demonstrates care and concern, across campus and at all levels. Data show positive outcomes at partner universities (increased help-seeking, reduced stigma, and increased student retention for those involved in wellness programs).

This also helps to support students’ crisis prevention before a situation escalates — this reduces pressure on counseling centers and creates systems of support that are more sustainable.

4. Building Community and Belonging

Belonging is one of the most important components of student achievement, and is also very easily lost. Numerous students, especially first-in-family students and international students, share concerns of feeling disconnected from their peers and their institution. Higher Health has identified this concern and responds with wellness experiences that support connectedness.

Through community-based programming—including wellness ambassador, peer mentoring, and inclusive engagement opportunities—students are inspired to build sustainable relationships based on empathy and generative mutual growth and belonging. Wellness is no longer solely focused on self.

Higher Health initiatives have an impact on social change. Campuses who pilot Higher Health’s community-focused engagement models report increased participation in student organizations, greater peer networks, and decreased retention. Students who feel a sense of belonging, valued, and supported, are significantly more likely to persist, improve their GPA, and develop a sense of belonging as defined by the institution.

5. Measurable Outcomes and Benefits to an Institution

Though the narratives of individuals are compelling, the transformative effects of Higher Health can be captured through numbers, too. The organization engages in multiple measures for evaluation that are data-driven and demonstrates College Health outcomes in multiple areas — from health indicators to student satisfaction and student retention.

Academic institutions in collaboration with Higher Health also report:

30–40% increases in student engagement with wellness services.

Identification of significant decreases in reported levels of stress at exam time.

Academic results linked to wellness engagement.

Less absenteeism and more students graduating on time.

These indicators capture an important reality that investing in the health and wellness of students is equally a strategic decision as it is a moral one. Colleges and Universities that promote health and wellness will neglect this by investing in programming that supports key elements, and tend to have a good reputation, greater student recruitment, comfort with retention, and more alumni loyalty.

6. Building Resilience for Life After Campus

The impact of Higher Health can extend well after the time that students are at a campus. Higher Health equips youth with a foundation of multiple dimensions of well-being, emotional intelligence, and resilience, which are essential in developing sustained wellness skills beyond their learning setting.

Participants in Higher Health often report an enhanced and general sense of confidence while reducing their stress levels, maintaining healthy relationships, and managing other life-sustaining commitments. The longevity of these skills is one of Higher Health’s most powerful legacies and are critical as they prepare graduates to navigate a busy, complicated, and demanding world.

7. Promoting Systemic Change in Higher Education

Probably the most significant aspect of Higher Health is the potential for systemic change. From its beginnings to improve health services, there is now a rethinking of success in higher education, and institutions are formulating wellness goals into their institutional strategic plans, campus designs, and leadership development programs.

Higher Health has encouraged universities to consider wellness as a defining feature of institutional excellence — alongside academic excellence and research output. As a result of this shift, future students will not only think that a campus cares about their academic performance, but that it cares about their social and physical health.

Ending Remarks: A Movement, Not a Moment

Higher Health’s contribution to campus-wide wellbeing is much more than a trend; it is a movement toward a new healthcare model in higher education. By re-defining health as connectedness, equity and design, it has nudged higher education away from outdated beliefs about health and towards genuine transformational experiences for students.

Thus, Higher Health continues to show how integrating wellness into the campus ecosystem not only supports student health, it creates a transformational educational experience. When campuses adopt a holistic approach, they are building healthy communities in the present to prepare their future, compassionate, resilient leaders.