NOTEBOOK
New Web Site Aims to Give Students Health Information
For many students, the only thing more irritating than the long wait at the campus health center is the out-of-touch reading material lying in the lounge.
But a new Internet company, headed by a former college-health-center director, aims to provide students with the health information they need, in a chatty format to which they can relate.
The company's World Wide Web site, 98six.com, went online last week and currently features personal reflections from 22 student contributors, on topics ranging from eating disorders experienced by men to "why cocaine sucks."
The content, which is intended to change daily, is divided into six categories -- body image, sexuality, alcohol and drugs, relationships, stress, and other health issues.
Richard P. Keeling, chief executive officer of Rethink Inc., the company that created the site, says it contains the kind of information that was difficult for students to find during his 20 years in college health.
Dr. Keeling left the University of Wisconsin at Madison in November, after seven years as director of its health center. He is also the editor of the Journal of American College Health.
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Health-center directors at other colleges seem to agree with Dr. Keeling that the new Web site is needed.
Fifty-five institutions, ranging from Columbia University to Mary Baldwin College, have agreed to include links to 98six.com on their health-center sites.
Nearly 30 percent of those institutions have already made the new site their official health-services home page.
Chris Opsal, a senior at Madison who writes for the site, says it is designed to be a "familiar, friendly" place, in sharp contrast to the "dry, clinical" health-services office on her campus. "A student going to the site will say, 'Yeah, that's totally what happens,'" Ms. Opsal says.
Dr. Keeling says that 98six.com "gets its name from the body's normal living temperature, and its tone and format from radio."
The site "doesn't preach," he adds. "People complain a lot of times that students don't change their behavior. Our site understands how complex the decisions are when it comes to figuring out sex, drinking, how you want to relate to people. It doesn't pretend that the decisions are easy."
In March, Rethink will put up a second Web site, called Collegehealthhub.com. The second site will be used by professionals as well as students, and will allow students to make appointments, communicate with providers, receive test results, and order prescription refills.
Dr. Keeling anticipates that the two sites will be linked by late spring.
"This is what I've always wanted to do: to offer services to both students and providers on as many campuses as possible," Dr. Keeling says.
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Section: Students
Page: A49
