Health and School Performance Among Youth Ages 9-13

描述(由申请人提供)：当孩子们身体健康并对自己的生活满意时，他们在作为学生的主要社会角色中取得成功是最有效的。利用积极的健康建设作为参与和繁荣重大生活活动的资源，我们的研究小组表明，超过一半的青年有主要的健康需求。童年中期的健康状况不佳可能与正常的发展需求相互作用，从而产生一系列负面影响，干扰学生在学校的参与，并对青春期早期的学习成绩产生不利影响。人们对这种模式知之甚少，因为很少有人致力于研究儿童和青春期之间健康是如何演变的。我们建议检验这一假设，即在从童年中期到青春期早期的过渡期间，积极的健康对于成功的学校表现是必要的。我们假设，健康由一系列资源组成，这些资源可以缓冲个人免受内源性和外源性压力的影响，并直接增强成功参与适合发展的活动的能力。这项研究有三个具体目的：(1)描述9-13岁青少年健康的纵向模式；(2)研究健康与生物/个人因素(即青春期变化、人口统计)和社会环境因素(如生活事件、社会经济状况和学校转型)之间的纵向关系；(3)评估童年中期经历的健康与青春期早期的学校表现之间的关系。我们将在马里兰州和西弗吉尼亚州招收2,000名四、五、六年级的学生。调查数据将在基线、12个月和24个月时从儿童、家长和教师那里收集。学校行政记录将提供有关学校表现的数据。统计分析将模拟从儿童到青春期过渡期间的健康轨迹及其与学校表现的关系。拟议的项目弥合了卫生和教育之间的传统差距，卫生和教育分别获得资金和管理。这个项目建立在我们团队十年来为青年开发健康评估问卷的经验基础上。这项工作的发现将为设计干预措施提供参考，这些干预措施可以缩小青少年因早期健康问题而导致的学业成绩差距。我们这项研究的长期目标是跟踪青年进入高中及以后，以更全面地描述从儿童到成年的健康演变。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Children's success in their primary social role as students is most effective when they are healthy and satisfied with their lives. Using a positive construction of health as a resource for participating and flourishing in major life activities, our research group has shown that over half of youth have a major health need. Poor health during middle childhood may interact with normative developmental demands to create a negative spiral of effects that interfere with engagement in school and adversely affect academic performance in early adolescence. This pattern is poorly understood, because little attention has been devoted to studying how health evolves between childhood and adolescence. We propose to test the hypothesis that positive health is necessary for successful school performance during the transition from middle childhood to early adolescence. We postulate that health comprises a set of resources that buffers individuals from endogenous and exogenous stressors and directly enhances the capacity to successfully participate in developmentally appropriate activities. This study has three specific aims: (1) to characterize longitudinal patterns of health among youth 9 to 13 years old; (2) to examine the longitudinal associations between health and biologic/individual factors (i.e. pubertal changes, demographics) and social environmental factors (i.e., life events, socio-economic status, and school transitions); and, (3) to assess how health experienced in middle childhood is related to school performance in early adolescence. We will enroll 2,000 students in grades 4, 5, and 6 attending schools in Maryland and West Virginia. Survey data will be collected from children, parents, and teachers at baseline, 12 months, and 24 months. School administrative records will provide data on school performance. Statistical analyses will model health trajectories and their relationship with school performance during the transition from childhood into adolescence. The proposed project bridges the conventional gaps between health and education, which are funded and administrated separately. This project builds on our team's decade-long experience developing health assessment questionnaires for youth. Findings from this work will inform the design of interventions that can close the school achievement gap among adolescents that results from their early health problems. Our long-term goal for this research is to follow youth into high school and beyond to more fully characterize the evolution of health from childhood to adulthood.