Reducing Health and Educational Disparities through Health Integration in Schools

Dear Colleagues,

We are organizing a Special Issue on the impact of projects aimed at Reducing Health and Educational Disparities through Health Integration in Schools. The venue is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes articles and communications in the interdisciplinary area of environmental health sciences and public health. For detailed information on the journal, we refer you to https://0-www-mdpi-com.brum.beds.ac.uk/journal/ijerph. Improving public health is an important objective for policy makers, and the health of children could have long-lasting consequences over the life course. Yet, a critical factor in achieving a good level of health in children over the course of their life is how well their health is supported in education systems. Health and education are inextricably linked. As Jocelyn Elders, Former U.S. Surgeon General said: “You cannot educate a child who is not healthy and you cannot keep a child healthy who is not educated.”  

If kids are not healthy, they will not realize their full potential in school. This is especially true for children living in poverty and racial/ethnic minorities. This Special Issue invites contributions to: (1) examine the important relationship between children's health and their ability to learn in school as a way to reduce health disparities; (2) present pioneering efforts to identify and address manageable health barriers to learning by integrating health and education in school environments. 

There are many reasons many children are achieving less than optimal academic perfomance, epecially for children living in poverty or with persistent adversities. However, perhaps too often, common health conditions that are either unrecognized or undermanaged are keeping many kids from doing well in the classroom and preventing them from accomplishing their full educational potential. Some common unrecognized or undermanaged conditions that have been proven to impact a child’s ability to learn in the classroom include uncontrolled asthma, uncorrected vision problems or hearing loss, dental problems, lead exposure, diabetes, persistent hunger, HIV, injuries, violence, and undertreated or undiagnosed mental health and behavioral challenges from toxic stress. Some of the conditions that are becoming more prevalent (including asthma, diabetes, and autoimmune conditions) disproportionately affect children of low socioeconomic status and racial/ethnic minorities, and result in higher hospitalization rates, missing school days, and educational challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic poses additional challenges to safety and educational attainment of the most vulnerable children.

This Special Issue is open to any subject area related to the impact of projects aiming at Reducing Health and Educational Disparities through Health Integration in Schools. The listed keywords suggest just a few of the many possibilities.

Assoc. Prof. Eunice Rodriguez
Dr. Ryan Padrez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• School health
• School health services
• School health promotion
• School-based practices
• Child health
• Vulnerable children
• Health disparities
• Educational disparities
• Mental health
• Special needs children
• Whole child supports
• Implementation science
• Program evaluation