New APHA book a reference on school-based health centers: Promoting link between health, education
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* Teddi Dineley Johnson

In the race to ensure that all children are healthy and on track to graduate from high school, school-based health centers are unsung heroes. Confirming the inextricable link between health and education, school-based health centers reduce absenteeism, improve the management of chronic diseases such as asthma and play a key role in the early identification of risky behaviors.

To capture the current knowledge on school-based health care from across the field of practitioners, researchers and policy advocates, APHA this fall will release “School-Based Health Care: Advancing Educational Success and Public Health.” Edited by Jeanita Richardson, PhD, MEd, and Terri Wright, MPH, the book addresses the practice, policy and applied research on the outcomes and impacts of school-based health care.

![Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/nathealth/41/6/4.2/F1.medium.gif)

[Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/41/6/4.2/F1)

Photo courtesy Marilyn Nieves, iStockphoto

Though numerous books and articles explore the dimensions of health and school-age children, “School-Based Health Care: Advancing Educational Success and Public Health” fills an important niche, said Wright, director of APHA's Center for School, Health and Education.

“There has not been a book on school-based health care since the ’90s,” Wright told The Nation's Health. “This book brings what we've learned over the last two decades into print and makes it current so that we can build on it moving forward in an environment of health care reform and a school environment that has become much more challenging and complex for students.”

School-based health centers provide needed services where kids spend the majority of their waking hours, Wright said.

“They go beyond just providing health care and therefore they are really able to make a difference in the lives of kids, particularly in removing the barriers to graduation,” Wright said.

In presenting the current knowledge on school-based health care, the book draws on the expertise of more than two dozen contributing authors whose voices demonstrate the wide array of those committed to expanding school-based health care. In addition, insight is provided into the components of a national policy initiative designed to secure favorable local, state and national policies.

The book advances school-based health care as a way to “break down the silos” between health and education, Richardson told The Nation's Health. “The health and educational policy environment is poised for change and our children are in need of silo-defying advocates who understand that ‘the first wealth is health,’” said Richardson, an associate professor and assistant director for community health programs and research in the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia.

The book will benefit public health professionals, clinicians and policymakers and educators who care about the well-being of students as well as anyone who wants to learn about school-based health care, according to the editors.

APHA Annual Meeting-goers will be able to attend a book signing with the editors and some of the authors from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 31, in the Everything APHA section of the meeting's Public Health Expo. The book will be the topic of Annual Meeting session 3117 on Oct. 31 at 10:30 a.m.

For more information or to order a copy of the book, visit [www.aphabookstore.org](http://www.aphabookstore.org) or email apha{at}pbd.com.

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association