Supporting the Health and Well-Being of a Diverse Student Population

Over the past several decades, higher education institutions have become increasingly diverse across several dimensions of social identity including race, class status, sexuality, nationality, veteran status, and ability. While researchers and practitioners tend to focus on identifying the health and well-being needs of students along individual social identities, they miss the opportunity to consider the complex lived experiences of students with multiple identities at their intersections. This chapter presents the case for college healthcare providers and administrators to develop and sustain equity-minded, culturally humble, and power-conscious college health centers to support the health and well-being needs of a diverse student population. After presenting overviews of these three conceptual frameworks, this chapter presents practical recommendations for college healthcare providers and administrators to operationalize these tenets in their college health centers.