School health services play a critical role in ensuring that children and youth have access to high-quality, affordable health care. By providing medical, mental health, oral health, and youth development services on school campuses, school-based health centers (SBHCs) and other school health providers positively impact students’ health and learning. They address a wide variety of health needs, from asthma management to flu vaccination to teen pregnancy prevention. At the same time, SBHC staff and other school health personnel can act as key partners in efforts to address chronic absenteeism and promote a positive school climate.
This section has background on common issues related to health and learning, and tools that will help SBHCs and other school health providers develop and run high-quality services. The highlighted research is largely limited to SBHC outcomes, but other school health services have also demonstrated beneficial impacts.
For a detailed look at the connection between health and learning, see Charles E. Basch’s Healthier Students are Better Learners, which is available for free as a special edition of the Journal of School Health. In addition to individual chapters focused on specific health issues, the Executive Summary provides a useful overview.
For access to more resources and services, consider joining CSHC today. Organizational members enjoy:
- access to all CSHC toolkits and services
- priority access to CSHC re-granting opportunities and to our technical assistance services
- up to 3 free hours of technical assistance consultation
- 20% discount on technical assistance and training packages
- 20% discount on CSHC workshops
- discounts on conference registration fees
- the opportunity to advertise jobs and events in ENews and on our website
