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Education and Health

SECTOR SPOTLIGHT

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The education sector encompasses formal educational institutions such as schools, colleges, and universities, along with teachers, students, and curriculum. Education has major implications for lifelong learning, a vital community condition. Lifelong Learning is about providing a good education for all that ensures all people, regardless of age, background, or ability, are set up for success, and have the opportunities to reach their full potential. Lifelong learning means launching people into meaningful careers, with ongoing opportunities to learn and grow. Education is an engine of social mobility with implications for health and well-being that extend across the life course and generations.

Learn More About Education on Community Commons

Evidence Base

Education Quality

Schools

Educational Achievement

Health Knowledge and Skills

Factors

Quality education, including the provision of safe and supporting learning environments, a comprehensive curriculum, effective teaching, and enrichening learning experiences inside and outside the classroom results in students gaining the knowledge and skills they need to lead a meaningful and successful life.

Schools can promote thriving, safety, and a sense of belonging among students, their families, and the school community by providing healthy school facilities, access to health-promoting resources such as recreation facilities, school-based health centers, and healthy and accessible school food programs.

Fostering educational achievement is associated with benefits across an individual’s lifetime, including higher incomes, better job opportunities, and access to vital community conditions.

Education equips individuals with knowledge and skills that promote informed decision-making about their health, and support healthy behaviors.

Outcomes

Improved learning outcomes and educational achievement

Education quality and access
Reduced child food insecurity
Improved nutrition and physical activity
Improved access to preventive health services

Upward social and economic mobility
Inreased access to resources for health and well-being

Increased positive health behaviors such as physical activity and safe sex
Decreased delterious health behaviors like smoking
Increased knowledge needed to navigate care settings

Featured Resources

Education Is a Strong Predictor of Health

This resource shows that education strongly influences health outcomes. It presents data indicating that higher education levels are associated with higher inco...

School Budgets, Student Health to Benefit from Higher Nutrition Standards

This resource discusses a health impact assessment that examined the effects of updated U.S. Department of Agriculture standards for snack and a la carte foods ...

Student Academic Performance Is Affected by Issues Inside and Outside School

This resource discusses factors influencing student academic achievement, including school characteristics, root causes, student health, and funding.

HIAs in Education

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HIA is a tool for education, public health and allied stakeholders to improve the health and wellbeing of students, families, and communities.

HIAs in education have focused on school structure and funding, transportation to and from school, school buildings and grounds, in-school physical activity and nutrition, and school discipline and climate. They have been used to inform a range of decisions pertaining to education including:

Formation of a learning academy, content of after-school programming, requirements for grade retention, full-day kindergarten, school integration
Programs to promote walking and biking to school, a policy to provide free public transit passes to students
Building renovations, proposed locations for new school sites
Modifications to physical education curriculum or nutrition standards for snacks and beverages sold at school, development of shared use agreements
The adoption of disciplinary models within districts, standards to reduce bullying

EXAMPLE HIAS

Full-Day Kindergarten

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas completed an HIA to inform decisions by the Nevada State Legislature on proposed modifications to the availability of full-d...

School Level Needs Assessment Regulations Under the Every Student Succeeds Act

The Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, conducted a rapid HIA to inform the U.S. Departm...

Restorative Justice Policies in Merced County Schools

Human Impact Partners, in partnership with Building Healthy Communities Merced, the Merced Organizing Project, and the California Endowment, conducted an HIA of...

Providing Free or Reduced-Fare Student Bus Passes to Reduce Truancy

This health impact assessment (HIA) evaluated the potential academic, health, and economic impacts of subsidizing the costs of student bus passes in Los Angeles...

Oakland Education to Employment Academy

Youth UpRising conducted an HIA to inform the Oakland school board’s planning and implementation of a secondary, specialized learning academy within a lo...

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