Program Objectives
The primary objective of the study is to assess the effectiveness of the state-funded clinical school-based health centers (SBHCs) and their influence on the students’ health, school attendance and the costs students spend for the health care. In general, the program is aimed at comparing health outcomes and health care costs of the students who have the abovementioned centers in their schools with those students who don’t.
Research Design Utilized for the Evaluation
Parents of 1134 students allowed their children’s participation. Moreover, 1027 parents agreed to take part in the survey. Those parents who agreed to take part in the evaluation received a mail with an adapted version of the parent survey. They were also presented with a $5.00 gift card to arouse the interest. Of 922 parents that received mails, only 419 returned the surveys.
Data Collection and Analysis Method
Parents were asked to provide the detailed information on their children’s health insurance status; to give the description of regular health care provider; to name the number of the health care visits; to evaluate the ease of obtaining the health care; to count work missed days due to the child’s sickness; to determine the degree of satisfaction with the health care provider and finally to rate the school-based health center utilization.
Findings, Discussions and Policy Lessons
The survey showed that 96% of the children has health care insurance of two kinds: public and private programs. Those who do not have any of these programs explained that they couldn’t afford it because they were unemployed.
Speaking about a health care provider it should be stressed that the greatest number of children, i.e. 54%, saw family physicians.
The number of healthy children who saw the doctor once during the year reaches 52%. More interesting is the fact that 21% of healthy children had no appointment with the doctor.
Parents try hard not to miss their work fearing to lose it. 95% of parents did not miss work because of their children’s sickness. Only 3% missed one day at work. 2% of them missed from 2 to 14 days.
Regarding the school-based health centers utilization, it should be stressed that only 59% of students visited them at least once during the year.
Critique of an Evaluation Study/Report
According to Keeton (2013), the research has demonstrated that the state-funded clinical school-based health centers really influence the students’ health, mainly delivering preventive care, such as immunizations. They play an extremely important role for the whole society, as provide immediate help of high quality for the students, who may become the future doctors, teachers, researchers and scientists, and may make a great contribution to the economic growth of the county.
Steven B. Cohen states that the heath surveys help “measure the health status, risk factors and health behaviors of the population and to assess the level of quality of the health care received”. To conduct a good survey you need to set the objectives, which you want to achieve. Much attention should be also paid to “the issue of survey content, questionnaire design, cost considerations, and mode of data collection”.
All these principles are very important for the future survey. It is also very significant to choose the appropriate topic of the study. Questionnaire is considered to be the heart of the survey. You must choose appropriate questions that will guide you in the study. In the book Designing and Conducting Health Surveys. A Comprehensive Guide you may find some examples of each type of question. The order of questions in the questionnaire influence the quality of data received in the survey. That is why you should consider the form and clarity of the questionnaire.
In addition it should be said, that conducting a survey of any kind is really important, especially if it is a health survey.
For the evaluation of the report, the descriptive research design was used. Overall, the evaluation study was conducted on the solid basis, taking into consideration the surveys of 419 parents, but I think that this number is too small for making the evaluation of that kind. I would get more people involved, including school doctors. They might be asked to show some statistics for students visiting school-based health centers. This would be better proof than the parents’ surveys. I would also make conclusions taking into account students’ comments. If possible, I would conduct a survey with both parents and their children, whose opinion is important as well. In survey, I would include a question like, “What is the main reason for not visiting school-based health centers?”
The survey was carried out in the state of Michigan, so it cannot be applied to any other state of the USA. The schools were selected with high quality billing data. Maybe, I would choose schools more randomly but in greater number.
In general, the work done may be evaluated as positive. On the one hand, a good deal of time was spent for the survey. It reported many findings which might be a good ground for the future surveys. On the other hand, more participants should be involved, including doctors, nurses and students themselves. So, this evaluation study has its positive, as well as negative sides.
References
Keeton V., Soleimanpour S. & Brindis C. D. (2013). School-based health centers in an era of health care reform: building on history. US national library of medicine. Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3770486/
Aday L. A., & Cornelius L. J. (2006). Designing and conducting health surveys. A comprehensive guide. Third edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
