Profs Strolin-Goltzman, Auerbach & Bonuck Investigate SBHCs

School based-health centers (SBHCs) are one of the most dynamic innovations in health and education in recent years.

John Schlitt, executive director of the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, recently told met with congressional staffers to bring them up to date on SBHC's.

School-based health centers were born of a movement to bridge health and education with the explicit objective of keeping school-aged children and youth healthy so that they experience the fewest possible barriers to learning. In a time of crisis, school-based health centers take their work a step further to respond to individual, school and community needs.

Whether it’s an extremely public crisis etched in our collective consciousness with grim detail, or the silent crisis of anxiety and depression among our youth, school-based health centers provide some of the basic tools to ensure student success by keeping young people strong, healthy and able to learn(Read all of the capitol hill briefing on SBHCs).

But exactly how affective are SBHCs? To find out, three members of Wurzweiler's research faculty, Professors Jessica Strolin-Goltzman, Charles Auerbach, and Karen Bonuck (also on the faculty of Albert Einstein College of Medicine) are undertaking a city-wide evaluation of SBHCs. Strolin-Goltzman described the process in a note to What's New at Wurzweiler:

The project will be divided into two phases. In phase one, the evaluation team will catalogue the availability and utilization of health related programs and services in school based health centers (SBHC) in NYC. The team will also complete a retrospective quasi experimental study of the impact of SBHCs on the learning environment.

Phase two of the study will collect primary data in SBHC schools and non SBHC schools to investigate the impact of SBHC on overall school climate and teacher satisfaction.