HEALTH
Sharing more than a room
The health risks of community living
By Susan Melgren smelgren@kansan.com
When Erin DeWalt, Overland Park sophomore, lived in McCollum Hall last year, she and her roommates would bust out the Lysol wipes once a month and fully disinfect their room. Nothing was safe. Countertops, doorknobs, desks—even head boards—were all wiped down. Any surface they had touched, they cleaned. Living in McCollum, DeWalt says dust accumulated quickly and people, often sick, would visit her room all the time.
"Living in such close quarters, you don't realize how much contact you have with others," she says.
Community living is a part of college. Those four-or five-years wouldn't be complete without the experience of sharing a tiny living space with too many people. But even though it's fun and often convenient, community living brings with it an array of health issues. Cleanliness is hard to maintain with so many people, sickness can arise from living in cramped quarters, and the constant stream of visitors can strain our mental health.
Disease spreads quickly, which is one reason why the University requires a number of immunizations before you can live in student housing. Patty Quinlan, nursing supervisor at Watkins Memorial Health Center, says the lifestyle changes students go through at college weaken their immune systems. You stay up later. Your meals become less regular and probably less healthy. You're no longer in a home environment where you have someone taking better care of you. And, on top of all that, you live
in close quarters with a lot of different people and their germs."It's a living community, but it's also a bacteria community," Quinlan says."Everyone brings their own mix to the table."
"Once one person in McCollum gets sick, everyone gets sick," DeWalt says. DeWalt had a bad cold from November to February last year, and she caught pink eye and the flu twice. She once had the flu for three solid weeks. DeWalt says she was good friends with five girls on her floor, and they just kept passing the flu around to each other.
Part of the problem results from lack of cleanliness in community living. It's hard to avoid catching your roommate's cold when you share a tiny room—and everything in it. Elizabeth Scott, microbiologist and co-director of the Simmons College Center for Hygiene and Health in Boston, says most surfaces in shared living environments, especially in bedrooms, are hand-contact surfaces. These surfaces are touched all the time, not just by you but by roommates, friends, visitors and even that guy you're working on your Spanish project with. Each time we touch those surfaces, we deposit our own germs and pick up others. When rooms don't receive regular cleaning, the bacteria can build up. Scott says this is an easy way to transfer illnesses such as the common cold and the flu, but also more serious illnesses like MRSA infection, more commonly known as staph infection, and Norovirus, or the stomach flu.
Bedrooms aren't the only places susceptible to germs. Community bathrooms are infamous for being germ-ridden and disgusting. Leslie Hodges, DeSoto sophomore, tells horror stories of the bathroom she used at McCollum last year."There was black mold dripping from the ceilings and the showers." Hodges says. "And the girls weren't very courteous with where they got sick." Hodges says someone threw up in one of the sinks last year, but because the maintenance staff was so inconsistent with their cleaning, it didn't get cleaned up for an entire week.
Guard your space from germs
Living with others is practically unavoidable during college, but catching your roommate's sickness doesn't have to be. The best way to prevent illness in community living is to clean regularly. Elizabeth Scott, co-director of the Simmons College Center for Hygiene and Health in Boston, says no one really knows how often you should clean, only that you should do it regularly.
Your room:
When you clean your room, do more than just vacuum. Disinfect surfaces like the door knob and fridge handles.
Your fridge:
"One thing students forget is the shared fridge," Scott says. "Wherever you keep food, it's important to keep those surfaces clean." Scott also says to clean the microwave.
Practice good hygiene. Scott says the most important hygiene practice is hand hygiene. She recommends carrying around a bottle of alcohol-gel hand sanitizer."If you can't wash your hands, you can at least sanitize," Scott says.
Yourself:
Scott says that when we vomit, viruses become airborne and land on various surfaces. That isn't the only bathroom hazard, however. Scottts says some bathrooms are covered in fecal coliforms, which are bacteria we excrete in our feces. And there's always the risk of mold and fungus. Quinlan says if bathrooms aren't cleaned often enough, they can harbor athlete's foot and nail fungus, which are easily transferred when multiple people step in and out of a warm, moist shower.
And community living strains more than just our physical health. It affects our mental health, too. We face thousands of people on campus every day, only to come home to a shared room. It's not a problem for everyone, but for some students, the constant
presence of others and the lack of privacy can drive them crazy.
Jon Huffmaster, St. Louis senior, lived in Stephenson Scholarship Hall for two years. Huffmaster had a private room his second year, but shared a room his first year in the hall. "It started to drive me nuts because there was never a time to have my own space," he says. Though he says he's a people-person, Huffmaster says he could never get enough alone time.
John Wade, psychologist for KU counseling, says the need for privacy varies."Introverts need alone time to feel energized. Extroverts derive energy from time with others,"Wade says."That said, all of us have a need for a certain amount of alone time which is very hard to get if you live with others."
Sharing a living environment is a staple of college. Even though it brings with it a few health concerns, living with others is an excellent opportunity to meet lifelong friends, and build skills necessary for interacting with others in the workforce.
"The college experience as we traditionally define it isn't living alone in an apartment somewhere," Wade says.
December 11,2008
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