Health and Education

If educators and federal officials are serious about closing academic-achievement gaps, they need to better coordinate efforts to address the health disparities that impede learning for students from disadvantaged groups, according to a study reported in Education Week.

“'At the national level, we’re on the verge of investing billions in our educational system, and the return on those investments is going to be jeopardized unless these health issues are addressed in a much more cogent way,' said the study’s author, Charles E. Basch, a professor of health and education at Teachers College, Columbia University.  For his study, Mr. Basch reviewed more than 300 studies in education, psychology, health, and other areas, looking for health disparities that would provide strategic leverage points for improving student learning.  In particular, Basch looked at six 'educationally relevant health disparities' — vision problems, asthma, teenage pregnancy, aggression and violence, physical inactivity, lack of breakfast, and inattention and hyperactivity.

"Federal data show that asthma problems, for example, affect 8.8 percent of white children between the ages of 5 and 14, compared with 21.5 percent of Puerto Rican children and 12.8 percent of African-American children in that age range, and are particularly prevalent in the nation’s largest cities.  Compared with children without the condition, some studies have also found, children with asthma tend to have more problems with concentration and memory, to have their sleep disrupted, and to miss more days of school.  One 2003 estimate, in fact, blamed the disorder for 12.8 million school absences across the country that year."

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