How does absenteeism impact the link between school's indoor environmental quality and student performance?

Abstract

We evaluated student absenteeism as a potential mediator of the association between indoor environmental quality (Operations Report Card, ORC) on the outcomes of reading and math standardized test scores. Test scores from 2016 were available for over 18,000 students in grades 3–9 from 47 schools in Colorado. Exposures of interest were indoor air quality plus a composite ORC score for five measures of school building conditions. Mediation was analyzed using mixed effects linear regression models with school ID as a random effect, adjusted for school and student characteristics. There was no observed effect of absenteeism as a mediator on the associations between exposures and test performance. Further, there was no association between indoor air quality or the composite ORC score on test scores. Indicators of socioeconomic status, such as a school's percentage of Free/Reduced Price Lunch Program and student race/ethnicity, were the key influencers of test performance. In addition, student absenteeism evaluated as an independent variable and not as a mediator was an important driver of test performance.