Champions Start Here
Earn $50 and Become a Mason: Health Starts Here Champion
Student participants will help better understand students’ mental and physical health, experiences and perspectives, and a variety of factors that may affect college success.
Video created by: Veronica Garrison-Joyner, PhD Student, Writing and Rhetoric and Jonathan Mendoza, Vibrent Inc.
Overview
Mason: Health Starts Here is a first-of-its-kind transdisciplinary student cohort study to understand and improve the health and well-being of university students. This research will follow a broad sample of young adults, specifically Mason students, over time to capture the diversity of their experiences in college and how it affects their health and well-being.
A unique feature of this study, Mason: Health Starts Here, is that students in the cohort will will be informed about their health status along the way and given guidance for maximizing their health.
Mason: Health Starts Here is made possible, in part, by a $500,000, 5-year grant from the Mason Institute for Biohealth Innovation (IBI) and support from the Department of Psychology and the College of Public Health
Initial data show that compared to the national average for young adults - Mason students:
- Have a healthier Carbohydrate intake
- Consume twice as much Fruit
- Consume 1.5 times more Milk and Milk Products
However, initial data from study participants also show:
- 83% of Mason students do not consume enough Vegetables
- Mason students drink an average of 2 glasses/cans of Sugar-sweetened Beverages each and every day
- 1 in 5 Mason students does not participate in any form of Physical Exercise
- 1 in 7 Mason students report encountering Dating Violence
