Prevalence of school policies, programs, and facilities that promote a healthy physical school environment

We examined the extent to which schools in the United States have health-promoting policies, programs, and facilities.

We analyzed data from the School Health Policies and Programs Study 2000.

We found that public schools (vs private and Catholic schools), urban schools (vs rural and suburban schools), and schools with larger enrollments (vs smaller schools) had more health-promoting policies, programs, and facilities in place. On average, middle schools had 11.0 and middle/junior and high schools had 10.4 out of a possible 18 policies, programs, and facilities.

Although some schools had many healthy physical environment features, room for improvement exists. Resources are available to help schools improve their health-promoting policies, programs, and facilities.