Evaluation of Integrated Health Programs in School

Abstract

School-based health clinics are prevalent both in the United States and throughout the world. This article, using the United States as an example, briefly lays out the historical development of school-based health clinics in the United States and subsequently examines the efforts at evaluating prominent aspects of school-based health clinics. Research has shown that school-based health clinics offer both educational and medical benefits. In particular, children who utilize school-based health clinics are significantly less likely to use emergency rooms and have a greater likelihood of a yearly physicians visit and annual dental examination. Increasingly, the performance expectations placed on school-based health clinics as a condition of funding has steadily increased. While they have demonstrated their efficacy, high-quality evaluations, employing flexible designs, need to be utilized to increase the evidence for their continued inclusion in schools.