CDC Launches New Student Health and Academic Achievement Webpage
January 16, 2008 - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) has started a new webpage that focuses on the link between health and academic achievement as well as the relationship between educational success and life-long healthy behaviors.
According to the CDC, “the academic success of America’s youth is strongly linked with their health” and programs that are used to promote academic achievement are increasingly starting to be recognized as public health interventions. The webpage shows that educational interventions aimed at raising student achievement and increasing school completion have not only been associated with improved health outcomes, but better educational results as well.
CDC’s new webpage states that health-related factors such as hunger, physical and emotional abuse, and chronic illness can lead to poor academic performance, and that health-risk behaviors such as substance abuse can often affect a student’s ability to pay attention in class, attend school and do well in tests. In addition, dropping out of school has been associated with less employment opportunities, poverty and multiple social and health problems. Therefore, academic success can be a predictor and determinant of adult health outcomes.
As noted in a publication made available through the website (Coordinated School Health Programs and Academic Achievement: A Systematic Review of the Literature), research on school health programs that measure academic outcomes is scarce. Therefore, CDC’s new webpage is still in its infancy - besides including the publication mentioned above, it currently provides a brief overview of the link between health and academic achievement, references to reports, and links to organizations and studies that are at the forefront of raising questions and finding answers related to the issue.
For additional information, please contact CDC’s DASH at 1-800-CDC-INFO or by email at cdcinfo@cdc.gov.
Source: “Student Health and Academic Achievement,” CDC, Division of Adolescent and School Health Webpage, 2007.