School-based
health centers (SBHCs), or wellness
programs, are located in 15 of 19 high schools in the San Francisco Unified
School District. These SBHCs are staffed with at least one wellness
coordinator, nurse, community health outreach worker, and behavioral health
therapist. SBHCs are designed to increase student achievement by reducing
health problems and risk behaviors that hinder student success. SBHCs may also
foster student success by improving
youths’ school-related assets like relationships
with caring adults, involvement in extracurricular activities, and belief that
they are held to high standards. In their recent article, The Relationship
Between Use of School-Based Health Centers and Student-Reported School Assets,
authors Stone, Whitaker, Anyon and Shields aimed to examine the relationship
between students’ SBHC utilization and students’ reports of (1) school assets and
(2) caring relationships with SBHC staff.
The Sample
The sample
for this study included 7,314 students in 15 schools from the San Francisco
Unified School District. Participants completed a modified version of the 2009
California Healthy Kids Survey.
- Age: M=15.89 (SD=1.23)
- Grade Level:
- Ninth: 25%
- 10th: 23%
- 11th: 27%
- 12th: 44%
- Race/ethnicity:
- Asian: 62%
- Black: 7%
- Latino: 13%
- Pacific Islander: 3%
- Other racial identity: 9%
- White: 6%
The Results
Results
showed that students who used SBHCs had higher self-reports of a caring
relationship with an adult SBHC employee, total school assets, caring
relationships with adults, high expectations, and meaningful participation.
Moreover, those students who utilized SBHCs more often also had higher school
asset scores. Finally, results indicated that those students with the highest
risk factors reported participating most frequently in the SBHCs, had the
highest school asset scores, and had the strongest relationships with caring
adult staff members of the SBHCs.
The Implications
Though
future research is needed to confirm findings, based on the present results,
the authors suggest that students’ use of SBHCs is associated with positive
academic outcomes, particularly through the students’ reported perceptions of
school assets.
For More Information
Check
out the San Francisco Wellness Initiative’s
September 2013 Research Snapshot for more details on this research.
For
more information on author-affiliated organizations, visit:
Citation
Stone, S., Whitaker, K., Anyon, Y., & Shields,
J.P. (2013). The relationship between use of school-based health centers and
student-reported school assets. Journal
of Adolescent Health, 53, 526-532.
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