ACHA actively works on behalf of college health professionals, colleges and universities, and students to advance well-being.
ACHA’s Advocacy Committee works closely with our government relations counsel, Active Policy Solutions (APS), to identify emerging issues at the federal and state level which impact college health and well-being.
ACHA introduces and supports legislation, develops policy recommendations that are data-driven and student centered, provides resources and unique data to policy-makers, issues position statements, and partners with other organizations active in higher education and public health policy to promote positive policy changes to the college health landscape.
Here are just a few recent examples of the impactful work of the ACHA Advocacy team:
The College Health Index
One of ACHA’s top advocacy goals in 2024 was the creation of voluntary CDC assessment tools for colleges on health and well-being, a College Health Index (CHI).
The CHI would be modeled after successful versions that have been in place for years for schools and workplaces. It would serve as a way for college leadership to evaluate their campus health and well-being efforts and identify ways to improve and support those programs.
At the beginning of 2024, the ACHA Advocacy Committee, with ACHA staff support, visited the U.S. Capitol and promoted, among other things, the creation of the CHI. From that, the Senate included instructional language to the CDC in their draft of the annual funding bill.
After an initial, friendly meeting with the CDC, the project, like much of the work of the CDC, has been put on hold until new Trump Administration staffing, funding, and policy changes can be implemented at the CDC.
Throughout the process, we have stayed in contact with our Senate champion, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), and the staff at the CDC, and once things settle down, we hope to return to working together to make the CHI a reality.
College Student Continuity of Care Across State Lines
An issue regularly brought forward by ACHA members is restrictions/prohibitions on continuing to care for their students when those students cross state lines. While the issue did not start with the COVID pandemic, the pandemic did raise its profile with colleges across the country shutting down their campuses.
Being able to continue to provide care to students when they are in different states was the focus of the 2025 ACHA Advocacy Committee Hill Day, where ACHA members met with the staff of Members of Congress.
As a result of those meetings, there are now several Members of Congress in both Chambers and of both parties who are interested in pursuing legislation that would provide a limited federal exemption to state licensure requirements to continue to care for students when they are in a different state from their campus.
Medicaid Portability
Access to health and well-being care are important factors in student success.
For students who rely on Medicaid for providing coverage for those services, this often means not being able to leave their state, or even in some cases their county, to attend college due to the lack of portability of such coverage.
ACHA has been making Members of Congress aware of this and other campus health and well-being impacting issues.
During one of our conversations with a Congressional committee overseeing health policy and a Congressional office, we were asked to provide more information about the impacts of lack of portability for Medicaid.
With help from members, we were able to supply this information, and this has generated a keen interest in exploring Congressionally efforts to address/mitigate this issue.
Federal Data on Campus Health and Well-Being
One of the areas that ACHA advocates around is the gathering of better data and study of campus health and well-being.
To this end, in 2024, ACHA re-submitted its recommendations to improve the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), specifically requesting that IPEDS be upgraded to gather better health and well-being information for college students through the inclusion of appropriate questions.
The U.S. Department of Education confirmed receipt of our recommendations for implementation consideration. While there has been no immediate action taken, we will continue to work with the Department and Congress to find ways to improve data gathering and study of college health and well-being.
College Student Opioid Use Disorder Support Initiatives
During a pre-conference workshop on advocacy at the 2024 ACHA Annual Meeting, participants were asked to share about policy areas in college health and well-being that they believe should exist, be changed, or be supported.
While not a purely policy item, the issue of working with residential living staff to increase the accessibility and use of overdose reversal medication was raised.
Following the annual meeting, ACHA CEO James Wilkinson reached out to his counterpart at ACUHO-I, the professional organization for campus housing professionals, to gauge ACUHO-I’s interest in working together on the issue.
There was strong interest, and several staff-level meetings and an information-gathering session of members of both organizations were held.
From that, a letter is being drafted to go to college leadership providing information on the issue and encouraging actions to improve access and training.
