Asthma is the most common pediatric chronic respiratory illness and has a significant influence on children's health, school attendance, and overall school success. Despite the effect of education and training, gaps remain in understanding school nurses' self-efficacy (SE) in asthma care. The purpose of this integrative literature review is to…

Background: Approximately 9% of school-aged children in the United States have asthma. Since 1997, the Asthma Action Plan (AAP) has been recommended as an asthma self-management tool for individuals with asthma. In the school setting, the use of the AAP has been primarily dependent on communication between the family and the school through a paper…

The goal of the current study was to assess the efficacy and acceptability of a web-based tutorial (Child Health Matters, CHM) designed to improve school nurses' communications with families about pediatric weight-related health issues. Using a randomized wait-list control design, a nationally representative sample of school nurses was assigned to…

Purpose: Chances for a healthy life are not equally distributed across society. Instead, genetic, social, and environmental factors help determine the probability that a child will be healthy and active. We investigate the probability that youth will be physically active by examining 3 consistent correlates of physical activity. The individual and…

Since former Surgeon General David Satcher first identified childhood obesity as a threat to the nation's health in 2001, health professionals have investigated potential solutions. Venues in which to address this problem have also been explored. The school setting was identified by the Institute of Medicine as a viable location in which to…

Objective: Examine the effect of the "California Children's Power Play! Campaign's School Idea & Resource Kits" for fourth/fifth grades on the psychosocial determinants of fruit and vegetable (FV) intake and physical activity (PA). Methods: Randomized, controlled trial (n = 31 low-resource public schools; 1,154 children). Ten…

Higher rates of smoking initiation and continuation by female compared with male adolescents, as found in many developed countries, may call for gender-specific prevention programs. Risk factors of smoking initiation and continuation were examined prospectively (1997-2002) among 3205 Dutch elementary schoolchildren (mean age 11.64) in an…

Physical activity participation rates in the United States have been in steady decline for the last 25 years, so much so that 60% of youth ages 9-13 years get no physical activity outside of school. This state of inactivity indicates that promoting participation in physical activity at a young age is of importance. For the present study, a…

For more than 50 years, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) has been conducting comparative studies of educational achievement in a number of curriculum areas, including mathematics and science. TIMSS 2011 represents the fifth cycle of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS),…

Hurricane Katrina resulted in a disaster of proportions not previously known in the United States. The traumatic experiences of children and families during Hurricane Katrina, the flooding that resulted from the breach of the levees, the evacuation, and the aftermath are unprecedented. In responding to the enormous mental health needs of children…

In this study, it was tested whether attitudes, self-efficacy, social influences and the perception of the school and home environments had different associations with intentions for adolescent non-smokers, occasional smokers and daily smokers. A regression model allowing for separate slopes of social-cognitive and environment variables accounted…

A large national study of schoolchildren aged 6-18 years was conducted to assess nutritional and socio-cognitive factors associated with body mass index (BMI). A questionnaire was used to assess nutritional quality of breakfast, importance of physical activity and food variety score, among 4441 students from randomly selected schools in all states…