Institute for Health Policy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, United States of America.
Department of Economics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Aug 2;19(8):e0306451. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0306451. eCollection 2024.
Many authors examined the individual and societal impact of school absenteeism. Nevertheless, no empirical study has looked at the potential direct correlation between deliberate school absences and chronic illnesses in mid-adulthood. Our goal is to investigate any potential direct links between purposeful school absences and adult-onset asthma in middle age, as well as measure any associated costs of asthma.
Data were sourced from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, a nationally representative survey. The outcome measure was self-reported asthma in mid-adulthood. School records of absenteeism from grades nine through twelve were the key explanatory variables. Logistic regressions were performed with controls for demographic, economic and health variables. Predicted probabilities from the regressions were used to quantify costs of adult-onset asthma in middle age due to intentional high school absenteeism.
More years of chronic absenteeism in high school were associated with higher risk of adult-onset asthma in middle age. Four years of chronic absenteeism in high school during the late 1970s through the early 1980s could potentially have incurred between $817 million to $1 billion of asthma related costs in 2002, when these students were in their mid-adulthood. These potential asthma related costs due to high school absenteeism are sizeable considering that this high school cohort only accounted for six percent of the U.S. population.
Reducing high school absenteeism could lower the incidence of adult-onset asthma in middle age, and its associated future economic burden.
许多作者研究了逃学对个人和社会的影响。然而，没有实证研究关注故意逃学与成年期慢性疾病之间的潜在直接关联。我们的目标是调查故意逃学与中年成人期哮喘之间是否存在潜在的直接联系，并衡量哮喘相关的任何成本。
数据来自于具有全国代表性的 1979 年全国青年纵向调查。结果测量指标是中年时期的自我报告哮喘。九至十二年级的学校缺课记录是关键的解释变量。对人口统计学、经济和健康变量进行了逻辑回归控制。回归的预测概率用于量化由于故意逃学而导致的中年成人期哮喘的成本。
高中时期的慢性缺勤年数越多，中年时期发生成人期哮喘的风险就越高。在 20 世纪 70 年代末至 80 年代初的高中四年慢性缺勤，可能会导致 2002 年这些学生中年时期的哮喘相关费用在 8.17 亿至 10 亿美元之间。考虑到这个高中队列仅占美国人口的 6%，由于逃学而导致的潜在哮喘相关成本相当可观。
减少高中逃学率可能会降低中年成人期哮喘的发病率，以及其未来的经济负担。
