The association between academic achievement and health status among eighth -grade Hispanic students in Houston

This cross-sectional study examines the association between health and academic achievement among Hispanic eighth-grade students in the Houston Independent School District. As part of the district's 3 year Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative to enhance comprehensive educational programs, a brief anonymous questionnaire was administered in the classroom to 359 students in two schools during a one-month period in the early part of the 2001 school year. ^ The primary study questions are: Among this sample of Hispanic adolescents, is there a significant association between academic achievement and health status? and in this same population, is there a significant association between health risk behavior and health status? The specific aims of this research are: (1) to describe the association between academic achievement and health status; (2) to describe the association between health risk behaviors and health status; and (3) to describe the relative contribution of health risk behaviors and academic achievement to adolescent health status among this sample of Hispanic adolescents. ^ The survey instrument was a 32-item questionnaire that incorporated: several academic achievement questions measuring usual grades, school-related performance, attendance, student and perceived parental satisfaction with academic achievement, and educational aspirations; two health and quality of life scales measuring adolescent self-reported health; and specific measures of health risk behavior, e.g., frequency of tobacco cigarette smoking, alcohol and other drug use, aggression, and suicidal ideation and behavior that were incorporated from the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Questions pertaining to sexual behavior and pregnancy were omitted to comply with school district guidelines. ^ Analysis revealed that strong associations between academic achievement and health status and between health risk behaviors and health status were observed after controlling for the covariates. Eight factors were found to be significantly associated with poor health status: usual grades (low), academic performance (low), academic achievement beliefs (low), classroom and homework performance satisfaction (low), ever drinking alcohol (6 or more times), suicidality (ever thought about, planned for, or sought medical help after attempting suicide), gender (female), and age (15 years and older). (Abstract shortened by UMI.) ^

1.3 Charles Hamilton Houston, NAACP Chief Attorney, 1930-54

The NAACP’s legal team, which eventually included Thurgood Marshall, had a strategy in mind for confronting the Plessy v Ferguson “separate but equal” Supreme Court decision of 1896. Walter White, the NAACP President assisted Houston in developing the plan. By concentrating on the “equal” aspect of Plessy, the NAACP would attempt to make “separate but equal” a financial impossibility for states toeing the line of “Jim Crow” laws. In the words of Charles Hamilton Houston, “we are going to bleed them white.”

3.3 Charlie Houston Letter to Walter on May 24, 1938

Although Lloyd Gaines’ battle against the University of Missouri, and ultimately the Jim Crow laws emanating from Plessy v Ferguson, was, on the surface, not faring too well, Charles Hamilton Houston, however, was pleased.

Reauthorization of the federal-aid highway program : field hearings before the Committee on Environment and Public Works and thee Subcommittee on Water Resources, Transportation, and Infrastructure, United States Senate, One Hundred Second Congress, first session, March 25, 1991--Houston, TX ... April 22, 1991--Billings, MT.

Shipping list no.: 91-498-P.

Climatic guide for Houston-Galveston, Texas area.

Mode of access: Internet.

Cardiovascular instrumentation : proceedings of the Working Conference on Applicability of New Technology to Biobehavioral Research, May 16-19, 1982, Houston, Texas /

"March 1984."

ITS Institutional and Legal Issues Program. Review of the Houston Smart Commuter operational test. Final report.

Transportation Department, Joint Program Office for Intelligent Transportation Systems, Washington, D.C.