Healthy schools: an arena for promoting good and equal health by advancing vulnerable students’ employment and income opportunities

School-level determinants of health (e.g., student behaviors, school climate, peer relationships, student-teacher relationships) have been found to explain up to 40% of the variation in students’ health behaviors, and educational attainment itself is a primary social determinant of health, which may work through one of several pathways including a pathway via employment and income. In attempts to achieve good and equal health for all, the development of healthy schools must include attempts to understand and impact school climate as an important mechanism for school achievement and student health, which together benefit students’ later employment, income opportunities, and health outcomes.

This project investigates the development and change in school-level determinants of health and their associations to later employment, income, and health in a representative sample of Swedish young people. In addition, this project investigates the perceived ability of the school to work with school-level social determinants of health (SDOH) from school staff and student perspectives and develops and pilots an intervention that aims to impact school-level SDOH. This multi-method and multi-informant project leverages a large longitudinal data set that follows a representative sample of children from ages 12 to 25. In addition, we will collect primary data from school representatives and students and test an intervention designed to boost children’s achievement, an important driver for later employment, income, and health.