During the COVID-19 era, UNC Asheville’s new Student Health Ambassador Program is using proactive and peer-to-peer reinforcement to instill a strong culture of wellness on campus.
By Mary Claire McCarthy
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all sectors of our lives, from employment to education, and everything in between. As students return to campus, many worry that university campuses are becoming COVID-19 hotspots endangering students, university employees and the surrounding communities. In many places, this has happened. But not at the University of North Carolina Asheville.UNC Asheville has only 19 cumulative COVID-19 cases among students and university employees as of Oct. 6. Three students are currently in isolation and quarantine, which makes up only 3% of the 92 spaces reserved for on-campus student quarantine or isolation.
There are multiple reasons why UNC Asheville has fared so well. One is the new Student Health Ambassador program funded by a $610,000 COVID-prevention grant from the N.C. Policy Collaboratory at UNC-Chapel Hill. This grant is part of $29 million the Collaboratory recently received under the coronavirus relief package to study treatment, community testing and prevention, and the public health and economic impacts of COVID-19. Roughly one-third of the grant money supports the Student Health Ambassador program, while the rest supports two other COVID-related projects and an evaluation of the projects.
The N.C. Center for Health and Wellness (NCCHW) at UNC Asheville leads the project’s research and evaluation components while collaborating with UNC Asheville faculty from the University’s Applied Social Science program and the Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC). The project also has added support from other members of the UNC Asheville faculty and staff, affiliates of the university and undergraduate researchers from health and wellness, sociology, political science, economics and statistics sectors of UNC Asheville.
Jordan Perry, UNC Asheville’s Healthy Campus Liaison, offers a rationale for why the University has so few cases. Perry says, “We have a pretty small community here, so folks feel a sense of responsibility to each other in a way that might be missing at larger campuses. We don’t really have a big party culture on campus either. Students certainly socialize and have fun, but students don’t come to UNCA to party.” Perry says another significant factor was the work of Residential Education to offer lower density housing on campus.
The Student Health Ambassador Program employs 45 Student Health Ambassadors who provide peer-to-peer support with a goal of changing campus culture and abiding by community health standards. These public health measures are practices we’re all familiar with, like wearing masks, washing hands and keeping a safe six feet apart.
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