Physical and mental health issues facing community college students

Abstract

<b>Objective</b>To examine health concerns among community college (CC) students by (1) identifying and coding the self-reported health issues facing CC students and (2) examining demographic and psychosocial variables associated with health categories. <b>Participants:</b> 946 CC students (<i>M</i>_age = 26.37) recruited from January 2017 to February 2017 who completed a screening survey for a larger study. Students were asked to "List three health issues facing Community College students today." <b>Methods:</b> Health issues were coded into broad categories and subcategories. <b>Results:</b> Among the 2,601 health issues reported, one-third were medical health (36%), one-third were mental health (33%), with substance use (14%), other health (14%), and access to health care (3%) also reported. The most commonly identified health issues were "general medical issues," "stress," "depression," and "sleep." <b>Conclusions:</b> Programmatic efforts to support CC students and promote prevention/intervention strategies for mental health, sleep, substance use, access to health care, and general medical concerns, remain essential.