The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted daily life for Texas college students, increasing feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression and reducing opportunities to engage in healthy behaviors. College campuses provide students regular access to mental health, food, and recreational services, but the reach of these services is currently limited. Strategic public health plans are necessary to address the emerging needs of students during this deadly pandemic.

In this episode, Drs. Vanessa Errisuriz, Marisol McDaniel, and Alice Villatoro discuss the number of new cases of COVID-19 in Texas and the unintended consequences of COVID-19 on Texas college students’ health-related outcomes and behaviors (e.g., depression, food insecurity, physical activity).

They also identify resources and strategies to help students and their families stay safe and healthy during the pandemic and answer questions about COVID-19 posed by students they work with. They conclude with a discussion of policies that could be enacted to improve students’ well-being during this pandemic.

Vanessa L. Errisuriz
Dr. Vanessa Errisuriz received her Ph.D. in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on addressing the disproportionate burden of obesity and obesity-related chronic illness among youth and young adults from marginalized populations, including Latinx and rural communities. She is currently a Research Associate with the Latino Research Institute at The University of Texas at Austin.

Marisol McDaniel
Dr. Marisol McDaniel received her DrPH in Community Health Practice from the University of Texas School of Public Health in 2018. She has experience with planning, implementing, and evaluating healthy lifestyle interventions and managing eHealth applications. Dr. McDaniel is interested in sustainable structural and digital interventions that promote food security and diet quality. She aims to prevent and decrease the burden of chronic disease for marginalized communities in Texas. She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The University of Texas at Austin.

Alice Villatoro
Dr. Alice Villatoro received her PhD in Health Services from the UCLA and completed postdoctoral training in Psychiatric Epidemiology at Columbia University. She is a mental health services researcher whose work centers on understanding the causes of disparities in access to and utilization of mental health services among racial/ethnic minority populations, including immigrant Latinx communities. Currently, she is a Research Assistant Professor at the Latino Research Institute at UT Austin.