Socio-ecological school environments and children’s health and wellbeing outcomes

Attention to improving the school environment is a common activity in school health promotion. The role of the school environment in supporting improved health and wellbeing has a theoretical base, but has rarely been directly investigated empirically. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the associations between school socio-ecological environment and health and wellbeing outcomes.

Questionnaire data were collected from 231 pupils in nine primary schools: urban and rural; single and mixed gender; disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged; and health promoting schools (HPS) and non-HPS. Questionnaire items included perceptions of the school socio- ecological environment (school perception, class relationships, teacher relationships, school policy and parental participation) and health and wellbeing outcomes.

Reported school perception (OR 1.21, 95 per cent CI 1.12-1.30), class relationships (OR 1.13, 95 per cent CI 1.06-1.21), relationship with teacher (OR 1.20, 95 per cent CI 1.11-1.29), perception of school policy (OR 1.25, 95 per cent CI 1.13-1.37) and parents’ participation in school life (OR 1.32, 95 per cent CI 1.15-1.51) were all significantly associated with health and wellbeing outcomes for all groups of pupils. Very few differences emerged between different school types on the measures of either school socio-ecological environment or measures of health and wellbeing.

The socio-ecological environment is clearly related to general health and wellbeing outcomes, which underlines its relevance to school health promotion. The lack of discernable differences between HPS and non-HPS demonstrate the lack of clarity in definitions of the health promoting status of schools.