HEPI Policy Note (13) Measuring well-being in higher education

Thursday, 9 May 2019 00:01

Measuring well-being in higher education (HEPI Policy Note 13) by Rachel Hewitt, Director of Policy and Advocacy at HEPI, highlights the need to distinguish between mental health and well-being and calls for more comprehensive data to be made available on the well-being of all those who work and study at universities. This new HEPI analysis reviews the availability of current well-being information on the higher education sector. The...Request free trial

Measuring well-being in higher education (HEPI Policy Note 13) by Rachel Hewitt, Director of Policy and Advocacy at HEPI, highlights the need to distinguish between mental health and well-being and calls for more comprehensive data to be made available on the well-being of all those who work and study at universities. This new HEPI analysis reviews the availability of current well-being information on the higher education sector.

The paper argues:

the conflation of mental health and well-being is not helpful for tackling either low levels of well-being or supporting those suffering mental ill-health;
we therefore need to collect data on both well-being and mental health separately;
and we need to collect more comprehensive information on the well-being of those who work and study in UK universities.
The lack of any information on staff well-being should be tackled urgently. Consistent information should be collected on applicants, students and graduates, so we can better understand the impact that the university experience has on the well-being of all individuals who either work or study at our HE institutions.

Rachel Hewitt said ‘If we are to get a grip on the mental health crisis in universities, we need to be collecting the right information to understand it. At the moment statistics on well-being and mental health are often combined, despite these being two separate issues with different ways they can be tackled. For universities to take the necessary action to address this issue, they need to better understand what they’re dealing with. It is shocking that we have no public information on the well-being of staff that work in our universities. If universities are collecting this information, they are not being open about what the results are showing. This is at a time when staff in universities continue to be under pressure, with increasing workloads and insecure contracts rife. We need a consistent, public dataset on the well-being of university staff.’