Health Problems Fuel Achievement Gaps, Study Says

March 9, 2010 Education Week

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 scheduled for release today.

"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.

To make the cut, he said, the health problems he chose had to meet three criteria: They had to negatively affect urban students from traditionally disadvantaged minority groups, be linked in some way to poorer educational outcomes for students, and have some evidence of school-based programs and policies that could successfully address them. The six "educationally relevant health disparities" he selected are: 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.

Vision Problems Cited

Likewise, the report says that vision problems, which affect low-income individuals at twice the rate of others, have been linked to poorer academic achievement. However, a New York City study involving eight elementary schools found that children who failed routine vision screenings were more likely to obtain and wear eyeglasses in school when they took part in a program that provided them with a professional optometric screening and two pairs of eyeglasses-one to leave at home and one to keep at school.