About ACHA-NCHA

Do you have a comprehensive picture of your students' health?

College students are a diverse yet distinct population with specific health risks and needs. Having current, relevant data about your students’ health can help you to enhance campuswide health promotion and prevention services.

The ACHA-National College Health Assessment (NCHA) is a nationally recognized research survey that can assist you in collecting precise data about your students’ health habits, behaviors, and perceptions.

The Survey with the Broadest Reach

While other health surveys of college students cover a single topic area, the ACHA-NCHA offers a way for you to map the widest range of health issues:

  • Alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use
  • Sexual health
  • Weight, nutrition, and exercise
  • Mental health
  • Personal safety and violence
  • Food insecurity and homelessness
  • Hours of sleep
  • And more!

There are also a number of established scales, including:

  • Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST)
  • The Connor-Davison Resilience Scale (CD-RISC2)
  • Diener Flourishing Scale – Psychological Well-Being (PWB)
  • USDA ERS Food Security 6-Item Short Form 
  • Kessler 6 (K6) – screening for serious mental illness
  • UCLA Three-Item Loneliness Scale (Hughes, et. al. 2004)
  • The Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire – Revised (SBQ-R)

See the ACHA-NCHA III Score Interpretation Guide.

If you need to collect data about your students’ smoking habits, contraception use, mental health issues, relationship difficulties, sexual behaviors, exercise habits, preventive health practices, and perceptions of drug and alcohol use, the NCHA can assess students on all of these topics and many, many more — all in one convenient survey!

Flexibility — Have it Your Way

The NCHA is here to meet your needs — you determine the primary purpose, surveying method, sample size, target population, and time period. You can choose to administer the survey in the spring or fall.

It’s All About the Students

We have made sure that the NCHA does not place a burden on your students as well. It’s simple, easy to complete, and can be distributed in several ways convenient to a busy student’s schedule. The survey takes about 30 minutes to complete.

The survey is completely confidential — students’ email addresses or names are never attached to their responses.

A Good Value for Your Budget

The costs to implement the NCHA are much lower than you would expect, especially in comparison to other data collection projects. It’s so cost-effective that you can implement the survey several times, to evaluate campus health initiatives and map your student health data over an extended period.