Student Health Advisory Board
The Student Health Advisory Board (SHAB) was founded in the late 1980s to function as a liaison between Penn students and the Student Health Service (SHS). SHAB works closely with SHS staff members to ensure the goals of SHS, especially Campus Health, are matched with the needs of Penn students. This thirty-member board includes undergraduate, graduate and professional students. SHAB runs January-December. For spring 2013, SHAB is working on two approaches to student health: evaluation and trends.
The SHAB evaluation team is working to assess the overall structure and effectiveness of Campus Health Initiatives projects from a student perspective. This semester, we are focusing on evaluating SexCamp, a sexual health education workshop for students. Having gathered data through observation and interviews with SexCamp participants, we are now working to distill the data into a format that will represent the interests and opinions of students. This information will be used by Campus Health staff to improve this educational event.
On the trends team, we are working to use social media to propagate positive health messages to the Penn community. In particular, we contribute content to Instagram and the Twitter feed (@HealthyPenn), Facebook (Penn Campus Health) and blog. We also work with the college houses to encourage contests that generate interest in student health activities.
The board is managed by the Executive Board, which includes, Ben Droz (Chair), Holli Seitz (Vice Chair of Evaluations), Esha Khurana (Vice Chair of Trends), and Kristy Simmons (Vice Chair of Communication)
SHAB is advised by Emily Panik (Campus Health Outreach Coordinator) and Ashlee Halbritter (Campus Health Educator).
Have a comment or suggestion for SHAB? Send an email to shab@pobox.upenn.edu. Please note that SHAB does not handle individual patient issues. If you have a comment or complaint that's specific to your experience, please contact SHS directly.
Membership in SHAB is on a calendar year basis. The application period is generally late October to mid-November, with interviews in December as needed. Information on how to apply for 2014 will be available here in fall 2013.
