Power of Prevention

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Power of Prevention: Summary of Campus-Wide Efforts

Our Vision

University Health Services' vision is to be a campus that actively cultivates better health and well-being for all — a place that can actually make you healthier! Health equity, where every person no matter their background has the opportunity to attain their highest level of well-being, is a vital component of everything we do.  The prevention programs and efforts for our students, faculty, and staff are core to our mission so that our campus community can be as healthy as they can while living, learning, and working at UC Berkeley.

Our prevention work is guided by the Okanagan Charter and our UHS Strategic Plan with goals that include being a:

  • Health-promoting universities and colleges transform the health and sustainability of our current and future societies, strengthen communities, and contribute to the well-being of people, places, and the planet.
  • Health-promoting universities and colleges infuse health into everyday operations, business practices, and academic mandates. By doing so, health-promoting universities and colleges enhance the success of our institutions; create campus cultures of compassion, well-being, equity, and social justice; and improve the health of the people who live, learn, work, play, and love on our campuses; and strengthen the ecological, social and economic sustainability of our communities and wider society. 

The importance of these approaches is articulated primarily in two of UHS’s Strategic Initiatives.

Bold Health Leadership

Elevating health as essential to campus sustainability, viability, and humanity

  • The campus invests in advancements that result in students, staff, and faculty flourishing in a health-promoting climate and culture.
  • Health outcomes are improved for marginalized communities.
  • Broad participation, advocacy, and collaboration result in shared responsibility for the well-being of students, staff, and faculty.

Predictive Prevention

Working upstream to identify critical trends, harness innovation, and adopt evidence-based prevention practices

  • Anticipation of the health impacts of shifts in demographics, the evolution of curricular approaches, and a changing campus landscape inform the development of UHS programs and services.
  • Continuous data analysis, modeling, and quality improvement activities help the campus prepare for the future.
  • Innovative prevention strategies elevate physical, mental, emotional, environmental, and social well-being for all.

Direct Services

For Students 

For Faculty / Staff 

Campaigns & Programs

Advocacy & Policy Efforts

Trainings & Classes

  • Be Well at Work Ergonomics 
  • Assisting the distressed students (Trainings for faculty, staff, and GSIs)
  • Psychological First Aid trainings 
  • Suicide Prevention Training
  • De-escalation training
  • Train the trainer on eating on budget and eating disorder prevention (Health Workers Program)  
  • Guest lecture in NST courses
  • Present at staff professional training like Stay Day
  • Precept dietetic interns through the dietetic internship in the nutrition department 
  • Health Work Environments Summit/Series 

Campus Partnerships & Committees

Prevention requires a positive, proactive approach, moving “beyond a focus on individual behavior towards a wide range of social and environmental Interventions” (WHO, 2015) that create and enhance health in settings, organizations, and systems, and address health determinants. As such, health promotion is not just the responsibility of the health sector but must engage all sectors to take an explicit stance in favor of health, equity, social justice, and sustainability for all, while recognizing that the well-being of people, places, and the planet are interdependent.