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K-12 school-based staff and their community partners collect and use data to assess learning, social-emotional growth, health, and mental health. Familiar measures of student health and academic success flag both opportunities and challenges experienced by students, but may not identify the root causes of negative health and educational outcomes. By assessing the social influencers of health and education (SIHE), schools and community partners providing school health services can better understand the social and environmental factors that affect the development and well-being of youth and their families. Staff from school-based health centers (SBHCs) and comprehensive school mental health systems (CSMHSs) are well-positioned to uncover the SIHE that serve as facilitators or barriers to optimal health and learning.
This brief highlights screening and surveillance as methods by which SBHCs and CSMHSs can assess SIHE, and outlines how assessing SIHE can inform school-, district-, and state-led activities to support student health and academic achievement. Developed by the Center for Health and Health Care in Schools, the School-Based Health Alliance, and the National Center for School Mental Health, it is part of a series of publications to support the advancement of tools to understand and address SIHE.