National College Health Assessment

The goal of this project is to collect local information about health behaviors, perceptions, and prevalence of a variety of health conditions which may affect academic performance, retention, and well-being among Western students. 

All currently enrolled students, aged 18 or over, are invited to participate in the survey (except those whose primary status at WMU is ‘employee’ and/or have requested to be excluded from contact lists in the Registrar’s Office).

This survey is completed online with Qualtrics Research Suite. 

Participating in this study will take approximately 30 minutes. 

Participants will be asked to answer a series of health-related questions. 

This survey includes questions about comprehensive well-being, demographics, safety and violence, depression and suicide, alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, sexual behavior, body weight and nutrition, physical activity, spiritual wellness, access to health information and health status. 

There may be some personal discomfort with the content of certain questions. For example, there are questions regarding illegal substance use, interpersonal violence, and sexual behavior. If you’d like to talk with someone about issues addressed in the survey, you may contact the Office of Health Promotion and Education at (269) 387-3263 or hpe-office@wmich.edu or contact one of these resources. You are free to skip questions on the survey or discontinue participation at any time. Refusing or withdrawing from this study will be at no penalty or loss of benefits to you. 

You may benefit by knowing that you have assisted in providing accurate information regarding health/wellness behaviors on our campus. The information will be used to develop wellness programs and services for students at Western Michigan University.

There are no costs associated with participating in this study.

All survey participants will be entered to win one of 50 prizes after submitting the survey. 

GRAND PRIZES:
WMU parking permit for 2025-2026 academic year ($300 value, two winners)
WMU parking permit for one semester ($150 value)
$100 WMU Bookstore or Amazon gift card (two winners)

ADDITIONAL PRIZES:
$15 Starbucks gift card (45 winners)

Prize winner personal information, including name, address, and social security number, will be released to the University for the purpose of payment, as well as for reporting to the Internal Revenue Service if total payments for the year exceed $600.00. WMU will issue Federal Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Income, listing my payment as reportable income if applicable.

ACHA will undertake the responsibility of maintaining a national database and providing individualized data sets and results back to WMU. Data transmission is encrypted and firewall securities are in place. After you submit the survey to the secure server, a message thanking you for taking the NCHA survey will be displayed in your browser window, and you will receive a confirmation email. 

ACHA agrees to use the student email addresses provided by WMU only for this single survey effort. Per the Qualtrics, Box.com and ACHA policies, student email addresses are never shared with another party nor used to any other purpose. The Office of Health Promotion and Education at WMU will be responsible for disseminating the results and generating reports for the campus community under the direction of the Vice President for Student Affairs. Individual responses are not connected to any unique identifiers to ensure confidentiality of responses. De-identified results may be presented at conferences and included in professional publications.

After information that could identify you has been removed, de-identified information collected for this research may be used by or distributed to investigators for other research without obtaining additional informed consent from you.

You can choose to stop participating in the study at anytime for any reason.  You will not suffer any prejudice or penalty by your decision to stop your participation. You will experience NO consequences either academically or personally if you choose to withdraw from this study.