Students from low-socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds experience a disproportionate burden of health challenges compared to their more advantaged peers. Disparities in health and access to services contribute to low-SES schools reporting lower average academic achievement levels compared to more socio-economically diverse schools. Schools provide opportunities for on-site health and allied health services that use professionals – such as nurses, occupational therapists, speech therapists and psychologists – to enhance student health and wellbeing and ensure students are ready and able to learn. Despite the widespread implementation of numerous health and allied health initiatives in Australian schools, evidence regarding their positive and negative impacts is limited.
The Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) conducted a literature review to examine the role of school-based health and allied health initiatives and their impact on student outcomes. This review provides policymakers with preliminary insights into how health and allied health initiatives in schools may improve academic, wellbeing and attendance outcomes in low-SES contexts.
Available evidence indicates that integrated, sustainable and professionally delivered initiatives can help address barriers that disproportionately affect students in schools with concentrations of students from low-SES backgrounds. This includes the findings that:
- many school-based health and allied health initiatives have the potential to improve academic, wellbeing or attendance outcomes
- some approaches (such as multiple service initiatives) are more strongly evidenced, while others (such as mental health initiatives and nursing initiatives) show mixed results.
Keywords: disadvantaged