Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, United States.
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.
Int J Hyg Environ Health. 2018 Jun;221(5):800-808. doi: 10.1016/j.ijheh.2018.04.015. Epub 2018 May 2.
School facility conditions, environment, and perceptions of safety and learning have been investigated for their impact on child development. However, it is important to consider how the environment separately influences academic performance and attendance after controlling for school and community factors. Using results from the Maryland School Assessment, we considered outcomes of school-level proficiency in reading and math plus attendance and chronic absences, defined as missing 20 or more days, for grades 3-5 and 6-8 at 158 urban schools. Characteristics of the environment included school facility conditions, density of nearby roads, and an index industrial air pollution. Perceptions of school safety, learning, and institutional environment were acquired from a School Climate Survey. Also considered were neighborhood factors at the community statistical area, including demographics, crime, and poverty based on school location. Poisson regression adjusted for over-dispersion was used to model academic achievement and multiple linear models were used for attendance. Each 10-unit change in facility condition index, denoting worse quality buildings, was associated with a decrease in reading (1.0% (95% CI: 0.1-1.9%) and math scores (0.21% (95% CI: 0.20-0.40), while chronic absences increased by 0.75% (95% CI: 0.30-1.39). Each log increase the EPA's Risk Screening Environmental Indicator (RSEI) value for industrial hazards, resulted in a marginally significant trend of increasing absenteeism (p < 0.06), but no association was observed with academic achievement. All results were robust to school-level measures of racial composition, free and reduced meals eligibility, and community poverty and crime. These findings provide empirical evidence for the importance of the community and school environment, including building conditions and neighborhood toxic substance risk, on academic achievement and attendance.
学校设施条件、环境以及对安全和学习的感知已被研究其对儿童发展的影响。然而，考虑到环境如何在控制学校和社区因素后分别影响学业成绩和出勤率也很重要。利用马里兰州学校评估的结果，我们考虑了 158 所城市学校 3-5 年级和 6-8 年级的学校水平阅读和数学成绩以及出勤率和长期缺勤（定义为缺勤 20 天或以上）的结果。环境特征包括学校设施条件、附近道路密度以及工业空气污染指数。学校安全、学习和机构环境的感知是通过学校气候调查获得的。还考虑了社区统计区的邻里因素，包括基于学校位置的人口统计、犯罪和贫困。使用泊松回归调整过度分散来对学业成绩进行建模，使用多元线性模型对出勤率进行建模。设施条件指数每增加 10 个单位，代表建筑质量较差，阅读成绩下降 1.0%（95%CI：0.1-1.9%）和数学成绩（0.21%（95%CI：0.20-0.40%），而长期缺勤增加 0.75%（95%CI：0.30-1.39%）。EPA 的风险筛选环境指标（RSEI）值每增加一个对数，工业危害的增加就呈现出显著的趋势（p<0.06），但与学业成绩没有关联。所有结果在校级种族构成、免费和降价餐资格以及社区贫困和犯罪的学校水平衡量标准下都是稳健的。这些发现为社区和学校环境的重要性提供了经验证据，包括建筑条件和邻里有毒物质风险，对学业成绩和出勤率都有影响。
