Examined children's appraisals of marital conflict as mediators of conflict and children's adjustment, health, and physiological reactivity. Found that higher self-blame and perceived threat were vulnerability factors for children's internalizing behaviors, health problems, and higher cardiovascular reactivity. Higher perceived threat was a…

This 1930 paper discusses important considerations in selecting school physicians, cautioning that unwise appointments include elderly doctors who are no longer in practice, doctors who are more interested in money than health, and doctors with poor interpersonal skills. The paper recommends hiring well-educated, tactful, punctual, honest, and…

Providing sun-safe environments, schedules, and activities; teaching and modeling sun-safe behaviors; and implementing a sun-safe school policy are ways that schools can help protect children from sun overexposure and lay the foundation for a healthy lifestyle at an early age. This article presents the SunWise program and examples of classroom…

Mercury tends to vaporize when exposed to air. The warmer the air, the more quickly it vaporizes. Although swallowing mercury can be a problem, the greater risk results from inhalation and skin absorption. Symptoms and health-related problems can result within hours of exposure. Spilled mercury settles in cracks and absorbent material such as…

Iodine deficiency, the leading preventable cause of intellectual impairment in the world (World Health Organization, 1999), has reappeared in Australia. Recently, we identified the re-emergence of iodine deficiency in Sydney (Gunton, Hams, Fiegert & McElduff, 1999). This has been confirmed locally (Li, Ma, Boyages & Eastman, 2001) and…

Consistent with the intent of the original school-lunch program, created by Congress in 1946 to provide "nutritious agricultural commodities" to children, the major purpose of today's school-lunch program is to ensure that children, especially those from poor and low-income families, have nutritious food at school. Even as contentious and partisan…

Some students with disabilities find that skilled companion dogs can help them achieve their goals, but schools do not always welcome the animals. Legal experts say that the law is generally on the side of people with disabilities who require assistance animals, but that the issues can become more complicated in the public schools. Guidelines ask…

Critical to resolving the problem of health disparities among Latinos is examining the needs within ethnic subpopulations. This paper focused on the unique challenges encountered by one ethnic subpopulation -- Latinos of Mexican descent living in colonias. Findings reaffirm the importance of looking within ethnic subpopulations to understand the…

The overworking of children is a popular stereotype of Victorian schooling. The familiar imagery of nineteenth-century education draws heavily on the Dickensian model of the brutal school, drawn from "Nicholas Nickelby"'s Dotheboys Hall and Gradgrind's school from "Hard Times". Though caricatures, Dickens's images of schools represented…

This paper is a commentary of the special series on involving fathers in psychological services for children. The following themes are addressed: the effects of fathers on child development; benefits of father involvement in child psychology services; obstacles to father involvement; engaging fathers; specific interventions for fathers; and…

This article reports the findings of a statewide study evaluating the body weights of nearly all public school students in Arkansas. Researchers in Arkansas analyzed "body-mass index" data for more than 345,000 students at all grade levels in 93 percent of the state's public schools during the 2003-04 school year. Based on the data, the…

This article describes how The Children's Home of Pittsburgh provides unique, specialized services for infants, children, and their families and seeks to improve not only the range of services available to these special patients, but also the way in which those services are provided. Their innovative healthcare programs have been developed in…

Given the increase in the numbers of children who are at risk for, or who have been diagnosed with, diabetes, school personnel must work as a team to effectively manage and support those children in school-based settings. Understanding the diabetic condition, developing an individualized healthcare plan that addresses the medical and academic…

The introduction of a NEW physical education (PE) program at Ancaster Senior Public School had, at its root, the desire to make physical activity an inclusive domain for both athletic students and those not so inclined. With the growing concerns over the rapid and consistent rise in childhood obesity rates it was evident that the current model of…

A survey of school nurses was conducted in New York State elementary schools to assess asthma and asthma management in students. The survey contained questions about asthma morbidity, management and education, obstacles to management, and school indoor air quality. The reported prevalence of asthma among students was 8.5%. Of the students with…