The value of using schools as community assets for health

In planning, designing, procuring and ensuring delivery of improved services ('commissioning') for the school age population, the outcomes should be students who are healthy to learn and who learn to be healthy. Intuitively, linking education and health development together within the wider learning environment seems a good start to planning school health. However there has been a shortage of either theoretical models that can span different settings or experimental research that demonstrates improved community health. Is there evidence that the wider learning environment provided in a school is valuable in improving health? An initial scoping exercise identified domains of health where there was a promise of health gain. International literature on school health outcomes using the framework of Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) has been reviewed. It was found that research on a variety of interventions was relevant to schools as an asset for public health. Effective areas for health gain were identified for local planning and evaluation using this community model. However, none of the studies reviewed was originally designed to test schools as assets and most of the research lacked methodological rigour, especially regarding children in low income countries. The ABCD model could help national governments develop resources for both education and health, but there is a global need to generate better quality evidence. Then people who commission for their local communities can make more effective use of these multifaceted assets to improve health and education outcomes for children.