• Living up to Expectations: The Strengths and Challenges Experienced by Chinese Canadian Students
• A Review of Psychometric Assessment and Reporting Practices: An Examination of Measurement-Oriented Versus Non-Measurement-Oriented Domains
• Adolescents’ Willingness to Access School-Based Support for Nonsuicidal Self-Injury
• Cognitive Proficiency Index for the Canadian Edition of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition

• Childhood overweight and obesity management: A national perspective of primary health care providers? views, practices, perceived barriers and needs
• CPS Position Statement: Inhalant abuse
• CPS Position Statement: Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder: Diagnostic update
• Has the Alberta daily physical activity initiative been successfully implemented in Calgary schools?

• Compendium of teaching and learning activities geared to adapted curricula : preventing AIDS and other STDs through sexuality education for students with intellectual impairments

• Comprehensive School Health in Canada
• Facilitating Health and Education Sector Collaboration in Support of Comprehensive School Health
• Diet and Physical Activity in Schools: Perspectives from the Implementation of the WHO Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health
• Policy Options to Support Physical Activity in Schools
• Policy Options to Support Healthy Eating in Schools
• Stakeholder Engagement for Improved School Policy: Development and Implementation
• Monitoring and Evaluating School Nutrition and Physical Activity Policies

• Preface to the Canadian Health Measures Survey results - Oral health statistics, 2007–2009
• Canadian Health Measures Survey results – Oral health statistics, 2007-2009
• The public health implications of assisted reproductive technologies
• Executive Summary – Meals and snacks consumed by young Quebecers
• Book review – Culture and Health: Applying Medical Anthropology

• Health status and health behaviours obviously have an impact on a student’s ability to learn. However, are there aspects of health or social development that are more powerful, urgent or relevant to the child’s ability to learn that we should focus on? For example, overweight or obese children may not be learning as effectively as they could but hungry children definitely will not.

• School health programs have long been unfairly expected to modify life-long health behaviours and decision-makers often look for significant behavioural results after only one or two years of program delivery. Will we now expect that those short term programs will also affect the student’s health sufficient to impact their academic grades?

• If there are difficulties to be expected in measuring learning improvement for all students, should we focus more on students who are clearly facing higher hurdles in their learning because of their health? For example, should we focus on students who will miss more school days because of asthma, disabilities, family violence, teen pregnancy etc?

• Does the delivery of school health and similar programs in a comprehensive manner (linking several interventions so that the efforts of the whole school, local agency programs and ministry policies are coordinated) have an impact on the nature of the school and the relationships that are formed within the school?

• If we are to look for multi-level changes to the complex, adaptive environments of the school, should we be using different research methods other than solely random controlled trials that are better suited for examining specific interventions aimed at specific outcomes?
• Are there different components within the comprehensive, coordinated or whole school delivery models that are more relevant to academic successor school effectiveness? Should we focus more on health and social services or changes to the physical environment rather than instructional programs? .

1. Health Status Affects the Capacity to Learn. Health is a key factor in school entry, school success and productivity throughout life. nutritional deficiencies, physical and mental disabilities and problems associated with premature sexual activity, tobacco/alcohol/drug use, injury, bullying and violence and other health/social issues can inhibit or prevent academic success.
   
   
2. Educational Attainment Affects Health Status. A lack of basic academic, literary and numeracy skills prevents a person’s capacity to participate fully in personal, family and community life. As well, formal academic status is directly liked to economic status.
   
   
3. Formal learning environments such as pre-schools, schools, colleges, universities and training programs, as well as informal learning in playgrounds, youth programs, recreational activities, religious organizations and other venues can influence health.
   
   
4. Formal and informal health care and social services delivery centres are also excellent vehicles for ongoing learning about life and well as health. Patient education, senior citizen centres, parent resource centres, guidance counsellors offices, visits with social workers are all potential points where individuals can learn or be encouraged to learn more.
   
   
5. Purposeful combinations of health and learning interventions can influence short-term and long-term health status as well as improve learning educational achievement. Research on integrated approaches to early childhood development, school-based health promotion, workplace programs and community-based programs all demonstrate the value of coordinating health and learning programs, services and activities as much as possible.

• Health and Education Are Linked. For students in middle and high school, health risks and academic risks affect each other. Students who do poorly in school may have more health risks, which adversely affect their achievement and in turn contribute to health risks. Data from the Healthy Youth Survey in Washington State provide a new way of looking at the relationship between health risk and academic achievement. The report examines 13 key physical and mental health risk factors and analyzes the relationship between these specific health factors and the grades students report getting in school.

• Every Health Risk Can Affect Academic Success. The more health risks students have, the less likely they will succeed in school or graduate on time. Each health risk that can be removed has the potential to positively influence academic behaviors. Improvement of even a single health factor may help improve academic achievement.

• Interventions Can Narrow Disparities. Lack of equal chances for success—the result of poverty, discrimination, unequal access to services, and other factors—affects a person’s health. These patterns of socioeconomic disparities are often the same for disparities in academic achievement. It may be unrealistic to expect to close the achievement gap for disadvantaged youth without addressing wellness, readiness to learn, and the conditions affecting the health of the community.

• Health Interventions Can Improve Learning and Health. There are many proven interventions that have a positive impact on students’ health and academic achievement. This report examines how delivering supportive health policies, instruction, and services comprehensively may be more effective than offering single health interventions. The Washington State report offers school leaders six key ingredients for success that are supported by research and are consistent with the Coordinated School Health approach from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

A number of studies have shown there to be a close association between health and academic attainment, with academic attainment influencing, and being influenced by, health status (Healy, 2004; World Health Organisation, 1996). There is a substantial body of evidence showing that poor health can inhibit learning (Healy, 2004; St Leger and Nutbeam, 2000; Feinstein et al, 2008). Moreover, drawing on a meta-analysis of studies focusing on health and educational outcomes, St Leger and Nutbeam (2000) conclude that good health is associated with positive educational outcomes. Their analysis reveals a strong association between health and education-related outcomes such as exam grades, classroom performance, and students’ behaviour and attitudes. Moreover, a review of the literature focusing on the links between health and school attainment found that ‘… in the longer-term the research consistently points to adverse effects of ill health on attainment’ (Powney et al., 2000: 7).