380.721.01 SCHOOLS AND HEALTH

Examines the relationship between children’s health and their K-12 school experience using the eight components of the CDC/DASH coordinated school health program model as the organizing framework. Topics include history and development of school health, relationship of in-school interventions to students’ health, health care access and academic outcomes, school health policy and politics, and the impact of school context on research methodology and findings. Research to promote health and prevent disease is incorporated into the course.

By the end of this course, students will be able to: *Understand the relationship between schools and their mission, and the history, policies, and interventions to promote health and prevent disease in schools. *Describe the structure and function of coordinated school health programs and the social, health, and academic benefits of these programs to schools, families, and communities. *Analyze how each coordinated school health program component contributes to the social, health, and academic outcomes of students, schools, families, and communities using a combination of current literature and in-school observations. *Apply the principles of coordinated school health to a specific public health problem to develop a set of policy and program recommendations for school health programs to address this problem.