There is one big reason why the topic of school health programs is meeting with renewed interest: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC's stated goal is that all states establish coordinated school health programs.  During 2004 the CDC provided $15 million for coordinated school health programs and another $47 million to support HIV prevention education that were often implemented through school health programs. The CDC also coordinates school health efforts among other federal agencies; national nongovernmental organizations; and state and local departments of education, health, and social services to plan and implement these programs. CDC currently funds 23 states for coordinated school health programs. In addition, CDC funds 49 states and 18 cities for school-based HIV prevention education.  

A book with a longitudinal view of school health will be of interest to all faculty and program planners, and will be assigned to many students to provide a sense of the history and evolution of school health programs.

This comprehensive introduction to the components of successful school health programs emphasizes the between school health and community health, and the importance of evidence-based policy in strategies that strengthen children’s health and their academic well-being. The volume is edited by acclaimed national expert Julia Graham Lear, Ph.D., director of the Center for Health and Health Care in Schools at the School of Public Health and Health Services within The George Washington University Medical Center. Chapters in this book have been selected from the leading medical, public health, and health policy journals, and most have been developed with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation's leading health care philanthropy.

The book is organized into four parts: Foundations of School Health; the Role of School Nursing; School Health Rationale and Structure; School-Based Health Centers; Preventive and Mental Health Services in Schools; and Financing School Health. Most of the pieces were originally published in the late 1990s, with the most recent piece a newly commissioned chapter written in 2004. (One chapter, included for historical purposes, dates back to 1947.)

As a special value to the reader who wishes to look further or conduct more research on the individual areas, each part of the book closes with a listing of abstracts of related journal articles that have appeared on these topics.