Assessing the Benefits of a Collegiate-Run Wellness Program for Akron Inner City Residents

This paper offers insight into the University of Akron Wellness Wednesday Program, an interprofessional organization of campus students and faculty that present wellness programming to three off-campus housing developments: Edgewood Village, Belcher Apartments, and Saferstein Towers I. The residents of these complexes receive wellness programming from many different disciplines for six months of the year, and then experience a large, four-month gap when the university breaks for summer. With this gap, residents often vocalized that they felt as if information was lost and that they were not able to remember as much when the program returned in the fall. In order to assess the residents’ ability to retain and recall information, a pre-survey of topics covered by the programming was given in April of 2018 and a post-survey was given when residents returned to the program in September-November of 2018. The purpose of this study was to assess the program benefits, determine information that residents remember, and explore other strategies to reinforce retention. Improving the experience for each resident is the primary goal of this study. Limitations include a lack of participation in the post-survey, as many did not return for the programming after the summer break