The Chair of Preventive Pediatrics is implementing a holistic health management system for students at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Until 2021, the team under Full Prof. Dr. Renate Oberhoffer will receive 450,000 euros in support from the technicians' health insurance company (TK). In the event of a positive evaluation, the project can then be extended for another two years.
"The Techniker Krankenkasse is an innovative insurance company, which faces up to the social challenges of the future - and this also in the field of prevention. I am pleased that we can carry out this important project together and can thereby provide additional benefits for our students," explains Prof. Oberhoffer, who is also Dean of the Department of Sport and Health Sciences.
Health management for students
The health management system will address all students at the TUM. A goal is to create basic organizational and structural conditions for holistic health management control. In the course of the project, students will be sensitized to promptly confront themselves with their own health – in order to then design their studies and the basic conditions in a manner that is favorable to their health. Integrated here as well will be such already existing structures at the university as "TUMgesund".
25% of the students suffer from stress or exhaustion
"In the field of student health, there is a great need for action, a situation which is also verified through a current study," describes Dr. Brigitte Steinke who is in the field of health management at the TK. A quarter of those students asked suffer frequently from stress. Alarming is the fact that a quarter indicate as well that they suffer from exhaustion - a dimension of burnout. Regarding physical activity, only 27 percent achieve that which is recommended by the WTO.
"Triggers for the problems of the students can, for example, be pressure to perform or social stress. Again and again, health deficits can be diagnosed, which have already existed long-term, but which had not been clearly identified and treated," explains Dr. Thorsten Schulz. This scientific researcher at the Department of Preventive Pediatrics initiated the project together with Oberhoffer as well as with his colleagues Barbara Reiner and Mascha Reinicke.
"Already in the past years, we have offered health investigations for our students of the sport and health sciences at our faculty in the course of the 'Healthy Throughout Your Studies' project. The results were alarming," says Oberhoffer. For instance, numerous students were over or underweight, or suffered from hypertension. These are all risk factors for such cardiovascular diseases as, for example, apoplexy or a cardiac infarction. In addition, such diseases which had not yet been diagnosed, even as far as heart defects, could be diagnosed, which then had to be operated on. "A great shortcoming is that many students unfortunately don’t even know any of the strategies which could lead to an improvement in their own health," says Schulz.
Informational events, free examinations & consultation
The cooperative project with the TK consists of the components of a "current-state analysis", "structural design", "developments", "implementation" and "re-evaluation", and covers the fields of activity of movement, nutrition and stress management. Accordingly, informational events for students from the fields of "nutrition", "health" and "psychology" have been created. The offers already existing at the TUM have been united. "There are already isolated actions for students, such as for instance the General Students Committee (AStA), the center for university sport (ZHS) or individual health management projects like the 'Healthy Throughout Your Studies' project at the Department of Sport and Health Sciences," summarizes Schulz. These offers are now to be collected first and then clearly listed, in order to intensify their retrievability. In a second step, the individual projects are then to be linked together with one another.
In addition, the Department of Preventive Pediatrics continues to offer a medical and sport-motor examination, free of charge for the students. While the initial health-related examinations are primarily offered for the students at the Department of Sport and Health Sciences for the time being, all further faculties will gradually be included through an online questionnaire involving their own health behavior and incorporating the Department of Sport and Health Management (SGM). The questionnaire involves the quality of life and health of the student as well as proposals by the students regarding changes to be made. In the coming three years, approximately 2,000 students will be questioned and the medical examinations of 1,000 students will be carried out.
Prof. Oberhoffer: "We want to represent a nucleus for prevention"
As a first consequence, various recovery corners ("Blue Zones") could be established at the university and designed according to the wishes of the students. In addition, health-promoting measures, which are developed as needed in the course of a project, should be made available for all TUM students as quickly as possible. "We want to try to promote health during the time as a student and beyond, and to thereby establish this long-term for the further process of life – to represent a nucleus for prevention," explains Oberhoffer as the long-term goal.
To the Homepage of the Chair of Preventive Pediatrics
To the Homepage of the technicians' health insurance company
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Renate Oberhoffer
Department of Preventive Pediatrics
Georg-Brauchle-Ring 60/62
80992 Munich
Telephone: 089 289 24570
Email: praeventive-paediatrie(at)tum.de
Text: Dr. Fabian Kautz
Photos: Markus Rist /Dr. Fabian Kautz