If You Can Read This, Thank Your Health Teacher! The Link between Adolescent School Health and Academics

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If You Can Read This, Thank Your Health
Teacher! The Link between Adolescent School
Health and Academics

• John Lagomarsino, School Health Education
  Consultant
• Coordinated School Health and Safety Office
• Presentation at
• 14th Annual Prevention Educators Conference
• May 5, 2011
• Berkeley, CA

CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Tom Torlakson,
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
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Todays climate in education is in a state of
flux. Public debate centers on how schools can do
what they do even betterdespite shrinking
budgets and new challenges. . . . Educational
reforms will be effective only if students
health and well-being are identified as
contributors to academic success and are at the
heart of decision and policy making. Schools, in
concert with students, their families, and
communities, must consider how well schools are
accomplishing their missions and how they can
best help students realize their full potential.
Guess the Date of this Quote

• Eva Marx, Susan Frelick Wooley, and Daphne
  Northrop, Health Is Academic, 1998, p. 293

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• Is student health the missing piece in school
  reform?

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Making the Link

• Health Academics
• Successful Healthy Students

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How do we know?

• Look at the research and data
• What does it tell us?
• What are the implications for my school?

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Forging the Links . . .

• Discuss the provided research document with a
  partner and report out to the group
• The title of the document
• The link between health and academic achievement
  discussed
• The results of the study that stood out for you

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Forging the Links . . .

• CDC Fact Sheets
• Health Risk Behaviors and Academic Achievement
• Physical Inactivity and Unhealthy Dietary
  Behaviors and Academic Achievement
• Tobacco Use and Academic Achievement
• Alcohol and Other Drug Use and Academic
  Achievement
• Unintentional Injury and Violence Related
  Behaviors and Academic Achievement

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Forging the Links . . .

• California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) Fact Sheet
• Are Student Health Risks Low Resilience Assets
  an Impediment to the Academic Progress of
  Schools?
• Health Risks, Resilience, and the Academic
  Performance Index

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Forging the Links . . .

• Getting Results Fact Sheet
• What Does Getting Results Say About Student
  Health, Supportive Schools, and Academic
  Achievement?
• WestEd Reports
• Student Health Risks, Resilience and Academic
  Performance Year 1 Report
• Student Health Risks, Resilience, and Academic
  Performance in California Year 2 Report,
  Longitudinal Analysis

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Further Links between Health and Academic Success

• Using the CHKS to Help Improve Schools and
  Student Achievement
• Recent Research on Health and Achievement

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Every Health Risk Can Affect Academic Success

• Interventions can narrow disparities.
• Health interventions can improve learning and
  health.
• Dilley, 2009

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Healthy Students Learn Better

• Adolescents with poor general health were found
  less likely to graduate from high school than
  healthier students.
• CDE, 2005 Currie, 2005 Fiscella, 2009

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Healthy Schools/Healthy Communities
Healthy Children
School Performance
Increased Social Capital
Healthy Communities
The relationship between schooling and health
outcomes is one of the strongest generalizations
to emerge from empirical research in the U.S.
Nagya R. (2000). Applied Economics, 32, 815-822
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Examples of Success from the Field

• Nutrition (School breakfast programs)
• Inner-city students mostly (African American) in
  grades one through eight who ate a school
  breakfast at least 80 percent of the time, had
• Better math grades
• Less hyperactivity
• Better attendance less tardiness
• than students who ate a school breakfast less
  than 80 percent of the time.
• Murphy, Pagano, Nachmani, et al.,1998

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Examples of Success from the Field

• Nutrition Services
• States that
• prohibit junk food consumption
• evaluate their nutrition
• prohibit food as a reward and
• provide funding for staff training have
• Better academic performance
• Higher test scores
• Vinciullo and Bradley, 2009

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Examples of Success from the Field

• Nutrition Services Parent Involvement
• School Nutrition Policy Initiative
• Implemented for grades four through six
• 50 low income
• Included nutrition education and policy, social
  marketing, and parent outreach
• Result
• 50 reduction of overweight incidence
• Foster, Sherman, Borradaile, et al., 2008

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Examples of Success from the Field

• Counseling, Psychological, Social Services
• Mental health and counseling services provided to
  high school students
• Result
• Decreased absenteeism and tardiness.
• Gall, Pagano, Desmond, et al., 2000

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Examples of Success from the Field

• Physical Education
• An increase in physical activity in classrooms,
  through extended physical education classes or
  physical activity breaks, showed that students
  either performed better or the same as control
  group, despite having less classroom instruction
  time.
• Pellegrini and Davis, 1993

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Examples of Success from the Field

• Physical Education
• States that do not teach physical education, do
  not provide staff development for physical
  educators, and do not have someone to oversee
  physical education at the state level have
• Higher dropout rates
• Diminished academic achievement
• Vinciullo and Bradley, 2009

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Examples of Success from the Field

• Importance of Recess
• Time spent in recess appears to have a positive
  relationship or no relationship with childrens
  attention, concentration, and/or on-task
  classroom behavior.
• Children were less fidgety, less listless, more
  focused, and more on task compared with when they
  did not have recess.
• Pellegrini, Huberty, Jones, 1995 Raviv, Low,
  1990
• Pollatschek, OHagan 1989 Sallis, McKenzi,
• Kolody,Lewis, Marshall, Rosengard,1999
• Jarret, Maxwell, Dickerson, Hoge, Davies,
  Yetley,1980

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Examples of Success from the Field

• Nutrition, Physical Activity Tobacco
• Healthy Maine Partnerships funded health
  coordinators and offered physical activity
  intramurals, improved nutrition education, and
  tobacco cessation.
• Result
• Decreased soda consumption
• Higher physical activity
• Reduction in tobacco use
• OBrien, Polacsek, MacDonald, et al., 2010

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Examples of Success from the Field

• Healthy School Environment
• A social development project in Seattle for
  grades one through six included training for
• Students - cognitive social skills
• Teachers - classroom management interactive
  teaching
• Parents - child behavior management
• Result
• Improved language, math, and reading
• Improved study skills
• Improved School attachment
• ODonnell, Hawkins, et al.,1995

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Examples of Success from the Field

• Healthy School Environment
• States with policies prohibiting harassment of
  students by fellow students and prevention of
  harassment at school were found to have
• Higher test scores
• Lower dropout rates
• than states that have not implemented such
  health-promoting policies.
• Vinciullo and Bradley, 2009

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Examples of Success from the Field

• Positive Bonding with the School
• Students who report this bonding are
• More likely to remain academically engaged
• Less likely to be involved with misconduct at
  school or engage in activities that may put them
  at risk
• -Blum Rinehart, 1997 Hawkins et al. 1992, 1999

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Examples of Success from the Field

• Health Education
• States that taught health related topics at high
  school level and had someone oversee health
  education at individual school sites had students
  who
• Scored higher on advanced placement
• Performed better academically
• Were more likely to complete high school
• Vinciullo and Bradley, 2009

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Examples of Success from the Field

• Staff Health Promotion
• Worksite wellness programs have been shown to
  decrease absenteeism and improve productivity.
• The evidence that healthier worksites create
  healthier, more productive employees can be
  extended to suggest that healthier schools may
  create healthier, more successful students.
• Harris, Lichiello, Hannon 2009
• Goetzel, Ozminkowski 2008

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Something to Ponder

• Think about the students in your school/community
• What health behaviors compromise their ability to
  succeed academically?
• Whats the impact on your school district?

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Some common issues

• Not enough sleep
• Hungry, poor nutrition
• Substance abuse problems
• Tardiness to class because of smoking
• Stressed-out
• Afraid of violence
• Family/peer problems that occupy their thinking
• Sick, and dont have health care available

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Assessing Your District

• Turn to a partner
• Look at the provided data
• Discuss the implications of the data in light of
  previously discussed research
• Blank template provided
• Data available on CDE Data Quest
• http//dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/

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What often happens in schools

• Health-impacting programs and activities are
  fragmented
• No one is fully aware of what others are doing
• Students health needs are unmet

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What needs to happen . . .

• Coordination of School Health Programs
• A planned and coordinated school-based approach
  that is designed to enhance child and adolescent
  health
• A framework around which existing and future
  district- and school-level programs and services
  can be organized

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Coordinated School Health Programs

• The Good News!
• These components already exist in your
  school/district
• The Challenge
• Coordinating these efforts

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How Coordinated School Health Programs Benefits
Students

• Improved student learning
• Decreased risky behaviors
• Reduced drop out rates
• Less absenteeism
• Less fighting
• Improved rates of physical activity

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How Coordinated School Health Programs Help
Schools

• Save money
• Reduce duplication of services/programs
• Reduce absenteeism (students and staff)
• Improve student performance and test scores
• Improve student classroom behavior
• Improve staff morale
• Support teacher teamwork
• Avenue to increase family involvement

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What it looks like

• Multiple interventions exist
• Policy
• Instruction
• Direct intervention
• Environmental change
• Role modeling
• Social support
• Peer instruction
• Media

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What it looks like

• There is a system of coordination for activities
  that impact student health led by
• School principal
• School health coordinator
• School health teams
• District-level school/community team

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The Principal is Key

• A major key to the coordination and success of
  many CSH programs is the school principal.
• Where plans have succeeded, the principal is a
  strong leader who promotes a spirit of teamwork.
• Without the principals direction, the program
  will almost certainly not succeed.
• Lessons From the Field, 2003, CDC

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Four Key Processes

• Communication
• Cooperation
• Coordination
• Collaboration

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