Health Behaviors Assessment

1
Health Behaviors Assessment
Facilitating Student Success

• WHAT IS THE HBA?
• The HBA is an Internet-based self-reporting
  instrument that measures three areas of health
  behavior eating behavior, physical activity, and
  personal management skill.
• It is used to provide an individual student
  assessment and target potential behaviors for
  positive change.
• The HBA is useful as a screening device to
  identify the needs of student cohorts and assist
  institutional planning activities.
• The HBA also includes a measure that indicates
  student awareness and readiness to make personal
  improvements.
• Since the HBA measures specific behaviors,
  anchored by a time dimension, it can evaluate
  individual and group changes.
• The HBA has been developed by sampling over
  2,200 students. An additional 260 students have
  received pre-test and post-test evaluations to
  measure their progress after interventions.

A TOOL FOR ASSESSMENT, INTERVENTION, OUTCOME

• The HBA has been used as an assessment and
  evaluation tool for interventions and outcome
  research. Examples are
• A peer-mentored intervention to improve personal
  health enhancement of college freshmen has
  demonstrated significant improvements on 14 out
  of 19 HBA variables as compared to an education
  only intervention.
• Research establishing how health behaviors of
  college students are associated with their
  academic success outcomes.
• Normative HBA profiles have been developed of
  baseline health behaviors among college freshmen
  at their first semester (N1,286).

HOW DO STUDENTS LEARN FROM THE HBA?
HBA Profile Example
II. Eating Behavior II. Eating Behavior II. Eating Behavior II. Eating Behavior
Category - Foods that should be consumed often Meeting recommendation Close, but not meeting recommendation Not meeting recommendation
Fruits and Vegetables v
Whole Grains v v
Low-Fat or Fat-Free Dairy v v v

Category - Foods to use in moderation or sparingly Low Consumption Moderate Consumption High Consumption
High Fat Foods v v
Caffeinated Beverage v v v
Regular Pop/Soda v
Sweetened Beverage v
Alcoholic Beverage v v v

• Upon completion of the inventory, the student
  receives immediate feedback on an individual
  profile. The individual profile feedback
  compares the students results with established
  criterion standards into three possible
  categories
• - Meeting recommendation
• - Close, but not meeting recommendation
• - Not meeting recommendation
• Follow-up resources include classroom healthy
  behavior presentation, resource website, and
  individualized intervention.

K-CAT is a non-profit organization that
distributes instruments designed to provide
screening, feedback, diagnostic input, and
outcome evaluation for specific areas of student
performance. For more information, visit
www.k-cat.org or call 785.532.3875