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

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. 

Introducing the ACHA-NCHA III Web-Based Survey!

What's New?

Here are some of the big changes:

  • The NCHA III uses enhanced display logic and skip patterns to bypass students through sections that are not applicable to them.
  • Questions on mental health diagnoses are now mixed in with physical health diagnoses to reduce stigma surrounding mental health.
  • New language and gender identity terms have been added to address inclusivity.
  • 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) 

New questions were added to measure a variety of other health and well-being topics including:


  • Food insecurity and homelessness
  • Hours of sleep
  • Utilization of various on- and off-campus services, including mental health, physical health, and gynecologic services
  • And more!

Additional Information:


  • Beginning immediately, all schools implementing the ACHA-NCHA Web Survey will use the ACHA-NCHA III, unless they specify otherwise (see final bullet below.)
  • The survey was re-written, not merely revised. The NCHA III is a different survey than the ACHA-NCHA II. You will not be able to compare results between the two versions of the survey.
  • Moving forward, the ACHA-NCHA Web Survey Reference Group will be formed from the NCHA III only.
  • Schools using the ACHA-NCHA Paper Survey will continue to use the NCHA II until further notice. Unfortunately, many of the enhancements made to the NCHA III (especially those using display and skip logic to improve the respondent experience) do not translate simply to a paper survey format.
  • Schools in the middle of a research or evaluation protocol that require continued use of the NCHA II web survey for comparison purposes will be permitted to do so upon request. Note that there will not be a reference group formed for the NCHA II unless there is enough participation in the ACHA-NCHA Paper Survey to warrant a reference group.
  • See the ACHA-NCHA III Score Interpretation Guide.
 

Whitelist Instructions

There are four IP addresses/ranges and two email domains that your IT Department needs to whitelist during your survey implementation. See FAQs for more details.

IP Addresses/Ranges

  • 139.60.152.0/22
  • 162.247.216.0/22
  • 192.41.90.160/27
  • 66.35.37.96/27

Email Addresses

  • ncha-web@acha.org
  • noreply@qemailserver.com

Note that if you are providing ACHA with personal student email addresses (gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc.) rather than campus addresses, OR if you are unable to release student email addresses to ACHA, whitelisting is not necessary.

Other Updates

  • Updated August 2022: The demographic survey will now be completed via a Qualtrics link. Upon closing your survey, you will receive a link to complete the Demographic Survey. Please use this worksheet to review the questions that will be asked and prepare your answers.