ERIC Number: ED580833
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Aug
Pages: 45
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
School-Based Healthcare and Academic Performance: Implications of Physical Health Services for Educational Outcomes and Inequality. CEPA Working Paper No. 15-07
Rochmes, Jane E.
Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis
Health and education are reciprocally related, and research indicates that unhealthy students are poorly positioned to learn. Providing services that prevent health problems or help students cope with existing health concerns is one way that schools intervene in the relationship between student background and educational outcomes. Providing health services on campus is theorized to promote educational goals by increasing access to services, improving health, and enhancing opportunities to learn. However, existing empirical tests of this relationship are rare and have important limitations. This paper uses data from Add Health, which identifies numerous services provided by schools across the U.S. Multilevel models test how availability of preventive or physical health services relates to adolescents' academic performance as well as implications for racial and socioeconomic educational inequality. Analyses consistently demonstrate that school provision of preventive/physical health services is positively related to youths' educational outcomes--including a higher GPA, lower odds of failing courses, and higher odds of graduating from high school--but also little evidence of differing associations across student subgroups. Additional results mitigate concerns that these relationships are biased by selection and offer evidence that increased opportunities to learn are one mechanism for the positive role of health services.
Descriptors: School Health Services, Physical Health, Health Promotion, Prevention, Correlation, Grade Point Average, Graduation Rate, Program Effectiveness, Student Characteristics, Adolescents, Longitudinal Studies, Child Health, Interviews, High School Students, Statistical Analysis, Predictor Variables
Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis. 520 Galvez Mall, CERAS Building, 5th Floor, Stanford, CA 94305. Tel: 650-736-1258; Fax: 650-723-9931; e-mail: contactcepa@stanford.edu; Web site: http://cepa.stanford.edu
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: High Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (NIH)
Authoring Institution: Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis (CEPA)
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health
Grant or Contract Numbers: T32HD007339
Author Affiliations: N/A