UC Riverside's new health center at forefront of wellness trend
A newly built $36 million student health clinic at UC Riverside aims to provide a wide array of medical and mental health services in an attractive building that showcases views of nearby mountains.
The two-story Student Health and Counseling Center includes a food pantry, a pharmacy, an outdoor balcony for meditation and waiting rooms that look like a hip hotel lobby.
Beyond serving Riverside students, it may become a national model of how campuses are investing more resources to keep their students physically and emotionally well in the postpandemic era, experts said.
The 40,000-square-foot clinic will provide “onestop shopping for wellness” that integrates physical and mental health services, said Denise Woods, UC Riverside's associate vice chancellor of health, well-being and safety. During a recent tour, she said she expects that the building will make it easier for a student to tap into multiple types of services.
The new facility replaces a 60-year-old building half its size that was built when the student population, now about 27,000, was much smaller. Paid for by UC bonds and other funds, the clinic centralizes services that had been scattered around campus and moves them closer to dormitories for students' convenience.
The medical health clinic and pharmacy are on the first floor, along with a satellite food pantry for students who need food or household supplies. Mental health counseling rooms are on the second floor, with extra soundproofing so passersby cannot hear therapy sessions.
Experts say the new health center is an example of how colleges and universities are emphasizing students' medical and psychological wellness much more than in the past, particularly after the challenges posed by the pandemic and the emergence
from it. In the long run, they say, such attention pays off for the schools, helping to recruit new students and improving graduation rates and alumni relations.
“For a long time, we've known that physical and mental health and well-being are an important part of academic success, retention and graduation. It's been shown that when students are physically and emotionally well, they perform better,” said Dr. Michael Huey, former interim chief executive officer of the American College Health Association.
More universities are grouping services under one roof, he said. For students seeking medical or counseling assistance for the first time without their parents' guidance, encountering a “modern, spacious, clean and professional-appearing center” helps them get past initial fears, Huey said. And ensuring privacy in counseling rooms helps to ease the stigma some young people might feel about reaching out for emotional help, he said.
National surveys by the American College Health
Association show a significant drop this spring in the rate of undergraduates who rated their health as very good or excellent compared with 2020: 47% compared with 55%. However, it shows that the most common health ailments are not life-threatening, such as allergies, back pain, sinus infections and colds.
On the psychological side, more students are coming to college already having experience with mental health counseling or medication. Research by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health, which is located at Penn State, showed that about 60% of students who use college counseling services had been in prior mental health treatment, compared with 48% about a decade ago.
At UC Riverside, the new center's layout placing counseling on a separate floor provides privacy, but the easy proximity to the medical floor also can help physicians and counselors to work closely together and with patients if need be, said Kenneth Han, UC Riverside's
chief medical officer.
“It's not just about a specific ailment. It's so much more than that for (a student) to be successful. How are things going in with your classes? With your friends? With your professors? I can see you for your diabetes, your cough, your cold. And we will talk about all those things,” he said.
Last year, about 1,840 students a month came for medical visits and about 590 for counseling and psychological care, the campus reports.
The center handles mainly routine illnesses and injuries like flu, urinary tract infections, stomach pain and sprains and offers vaccinations and birth control. It sends students to local hospitals for emergencies and surgeries.
Fourth-year student Allison Escobar, a psychology major from Redwood City, said she thinks the new building will attract more students. Recently she worked there as part of a team preparing the center for its opening. It is a big improvement over the old one, which she said “had a lot of things wrong with it.” Here, she said, students especially appreciate the improved and soundproofed counseling rooms.
“A lot of consideration for privacy is a huge thing,” she said.
Set to launch within months, a new emergency response team of mental health professionals — rather than campus police — will be first responders to most mental health emergencies such as a suicide threat or depression. In response to systemwide UC policies enacted two years ago, all UC campuses have formed or are starting similar teams.
The clinic was designed by the HGA architectural firm. Kevin Day, the project's design principal architect at HGA, said it was important to provide views of the Box Springs Mountain Reserve, a large park next to campus, through the lobby's glass walls and big windows as well as to have an outdoor courtyard and balcony with shade. Appointment windows on both floors look like contemporary theater box offices and the interiors are painted in cool pastel shades.
Connecting the clinic to the natural landscape “becomes a part of the healing process. It is really about creating a welcoming environment,” Day said.
The soundproofing for counseling rooms is a switch from the old building, where therapists sometimes had to use noise machines to block conversations from the public.
Unless they opt out and use family or other coverage, UC Riverside students pay about $2,100 a year for campus health insurance as part of their registration fees and receive most medical services without any additional costs. All students, regardless of insurance status, can get free, unlimited counseling sessions, although most usually need only four to six visits; that is funded through the mandatory $410 annual student services fee.