Health and School Performance Among Youth Ages 9-13

描述（由申请人提供）：当孩子们健康并对生活满意时，他们作为学生的主要社会角色的成功是最有效的。 利用积极的健康建设作为参与和蓬勃发展的主要生活活动的资源，我们的研究小组已经表明，超过一半的青年有重大的健康需求。 童年中期的健康状况不佳可能与规范的发展需求相互作用，产生负面的螺旋效应，干扰学校的参与，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，因为很少有人关注儿童和青少年之间的健康演变。 我们建议测试的假设，积极的健康是必要的成功的学校表现从童年中期到青春期早期的过渡。 我们假设，健康包括一套缓冲个人从内源性和外源性的压力，并直接提高能力，成功地参与发展适当的活动的资源。 这项研究有三个具体目标：（1）描述9至13岁青少年的纵向健康模式;（2）检查健康与生物/个人因素（即青春期变化，人口统计学）和社会环境因素（即，生活事件，社会经济地位和学校过渡）;（3）评估童年中期的健康经历如何与青春期早期的学校表现相关。 我们将在马里兰州和西弗吉尼亚州招收2,000名4、5和6年级的学生。 将在基线、12个月和24个月时从儿童、家长和教师那里收集调查数据。 学校行政记录将提供有关学校表现的数据。 统计分析将建立从童年到青春期过渡期间的健康轨迹及其与学校成绩的关系的模型。 拟议的项目弥补了保健与教育之间的传统差距，因为这两个项目是分开供资和管理的。 该项目建立在我们团队开发青年健康评估问卷长达十年的经验基础上。 这项工作的结果将为干预措施的设计提供信息，这些干预措施可以缩小青少年早期健康问题导致的学业成绩差距。 我们这项研究的长期目标是跟踪青少年进入高中及以后，以更全面地描述从童年到成年的健康演变。

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.