Health and Wellness introduces free magazine
The Student Health and Wellness Center has released USU Student Health 101, a free online magazine subscription for all USU students.
Lauren Gould, the public relations and marketing intern for USU Student Health Services, has been working on promoting the magazine since August. Readership of the first two issues is still climbing.
“Everybody who has opened it and read it, they love it,” she said.
The magazine comes from Student Health 101, an organization composed of health professionals and student writers from across the country. She said the articles are analyzed by a professional advisory board and student advisory board.
She said the content is specifically targeted to USU students.
“We kind of tailor it towards our student body so that it’s engaging and it’s what people here want to read about,” she said.
She said the usage of the magazine is analyzed to determine how much students are accessing the publication and what they are reading most.
The magazine includes videos in some of its articles, some about cooking and exercising.
“I am a visual learner,” Gould said. “I like seeing the exercise done on Youtube so I can get in front of my computer and mimic the exercise.”
Gould said normally a one year subscription would cost the university about $8,000 dollars, but this year’s subscription is a free trial run.
Ryan Barfuss, the prevention specialist at USU Student Health Services, has been working to involve Student Health 101 with USU for a few years.
“Because of the cost associated with it and no budget for it, we have not been able to get it here on campus,” he said.
Over the summer, Barfuss said USU won the trial subscription for the year.
“This is a huge opportunity for the students to receive this type and quality of information and at no cost to them or the university,” he said.
A survey is given out every two years to students, asking them if they’ve received health and wellness information. Barfuss said the majority of people have not received this information from The Health and Wellness Department.
He said this is one of the reasons the office wanted to have Student Health 101 involved with USU students.
Barfuss receives a monthly report giving him the statistics of how many views the magazine had and how much time students spent on particular articles.
“My favorite parts of the magazine are some of the videos that the students produce,” he said. “They are very creative and the students can relate to them really well.”
Barfuss and Gould are working on a promotion plan that would involve Facebook, Twitter, table tents in dining areas on campus and advertising within on-campus housing units.
Barfuss said by reading the articles, students can learn new ideas to help enrich their lives to make them healthy and happy.
“The more students read and take advantage of this online magazine, the more likely we can propose that we have this magazine next year and the years following that,” he said.
– janemiche13@gmail.com