Personal, Behavioral, and Environmental Domains Influencing the Perceived Health of University Employees

Personal, Behavioral, and Environmental Domains Influencing the Perceived Health of University Employees

Paige Whitney

Dissertation (Bachelor/Master/Phd)

 University of Colorado Colorado Springs ProQuest Dissertations Publishing

2023

Employees of higher education play an important role in cultivating campus and community health and wellbeing. However, the ebbs and flows of the COVID-19 pandemic has added additional complexity, uncertainty, and strain to the physical and mental health of this critical and understudied population. Therefore, the current crosssectional correlational study explored the physical, mental, and environmental determinants of perceived health in higher education employees to help cultivate creative health and wellbeing solutions. Through the use of logistic regression, it was found that sleep, body mass index (BMI), flourishing, and the extent to which employees felt the university cares about their health and wellbeing were the four significant factors which increase the odds of having higher levels of perceived health. In addition, exploratory mediation analyses reinforced the reciprocal and interconnected nature of an individual’s summative evaluation of their health. By breaking this multifaceted idea of ‘perceived health’ down into behavioral, personal, and environmental factors, and highlighting the four domains that emerged as significant in this study, individuals and groups can use this as a guide to help elevate and support the perceived health in university employees.