The Health, Learning, and Environmental Justice Connection

• In Event: Rethinking Policies for Justice and Equitable Education Systems

Abstract

Objective
This paper will highlight why education policy should focus more deliberately on student health and healthy school environments as a strategy for supporting student success. Opportunities such as integrating health and wellness measures within school accountability systems, providing professional development that ensures staff understands the health and learning connection, and leveraging both education and non-education funding sources to support student health and healthy school environments will be explored.

Theoretical Framework
The authors center their analysis based on the reciprocal relationship between health and education over time that contributes to disparities in each, presenting new ways to present more seamless policy connections. Existing research on medicare, Medicaid, and the state children’s health insurance program provides illustrative examples of new ways to understand the relationship between health and education policy in research, practice, and policy and to establish a path for future policy scholarship.

Methods & Data Sources
The authors draw upon mixed methods studies from the public health sector and health policy with a particular focus on qualitative research that examines the role of efforts that focus on environmental justice and school health to mitigate structural inequities.

Results
In addition to highlighting research that explores the intersection between healthy schools, air quality, and student outcomes, this presentation will discuss models from across the country that highlight promising strategies for supporting student health, greater pollution standards, and healthy school environments, including cross-sector partnerships, that can inform a new path forward for this work.

Scholarly Significance
Research documents what educators know: healthy students are better prepared to learn and succeed in school. This presentation will review the evidence documenting this critical connection between health, learning and environmental justice issues, with a particular focus on linkages between air quality and student achievement. For example, students in underserved communities, particularly students of color, are at increased risk of chronic health problems, such as diabetes and asthma, that hinder learning and impact long‐term health. In addition, students attending schools in low-income school districts are generally less likely to have access to school health services than students attending schools in wealthier districts. Emerging scholarship presents a compelling argument for more research that explores the intersection between environmental justice, education justice and education policy.

Author

• Joseph P. Bishop, University of California - Los Angeles