Illuminating the link between educational and health outcomes for school children in Arkansas cities
ArkansasChallenge
The Arkansas Center for Health Improvement (ACHI) wanted to better understand the impact of social and economic conditions such as poverty and stress on health and educational outcomes in five urban school districts across the state. ACHI needed local data to get a clearer picture of the factors that influence health and well-being in school districts to determine if changes in school zoning could improve school quality and health outcomes.
Place-based risk, driven by historical racial inequities like red-lining, continue to be a factor in health disparities and inequality of related outcomes like school performance.
Impact
Using City Health Dashboard downloadable data, ACHI overlaid frequent mental distress, COVID local risk index, frequent physical distress, and children in poverty onto maps with local school district geographies and school ratings. The maps were promoted widely and highlighted stark geographic and social inequities between school zones. Place-based risk, driven by historical racial inequities like red-lining, continue to be a factor in health disparities and inequality of related outcomes like school performance. By clearly linking these issues, ACHI hopes to drive action toward policy change like re-zoning and healthy policies so that school districts can improve both health and educational outcomes for all students.
