A natural experiment of College-Ready Programs on health among low SES minorities Our """"""""Grand Opportunities"""""""" proposal addresses the NCMHD research priority, """"""""Social Determinants of Health Initiative."""""""" Observational studies have linked poor education to worse health behaviors and worse health outcomes including substantially shorter life expectancy. In this proposed study, we will take advantage of a natural experiment and examine the impact of a new education model on adolescent health and health behaviors. The Los Angeles Alliance """"""""College-Ready Programs"""""""" have been employed in eight high schools so far and appears to have dramatically raised the educational achievement of low-income, minority students in Los Angeles according to preliminary data. Elsewhere in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), only 50-70% of 9th graders eventually graduate from high school, and only one-third of graduates meet the academic requirements to attend a California 4-year public university. In contrast, almost 100% of entering Alliance 9th graders complete high school, pass the high school exit exam, and are accepted to a 4-year college. Alliance's average Academic Performance Index (API) score is 735, nearly 2.5 standard deviations higher than the LAUSD average of 632. While these results may seem too good to have occurred without some selection bias, Alliance schools have more minority students, English-learners, students on free/reduced lunch, and parents without a high school diploma compared to LAUSD schools. Because acceptance to an LA Alliance school is based on a random lottery, a very rare opportunity exists to observe the impact of educational achievement on health in a natural experiment. Our multidisciplinary team of experts in health disparities, adolescent and mental health, education and social networks will use a quasi-experimental study design to determine what impact the Alliance College-Ready schools are having on educational achievement, health and health-related behaviors. We will sample students who apply to an Alliance high school and compare those who are accepted to and attend an Alliance school (Alliance Group) with those who attend another high school (Control Group). Furthermore, we will explore some potential underlying mechanisms (such as health attitudes, social networks, parental involvement, daily structure) that might potentially explain how the Alliance schools influence health and health behaviors. The LA Alliance Schools are new and not yet formally studied. However, two-year NIH Grand Opportunity funding will help quickly identify the impact that the College-Ready Program is having. If education influences health as hypothesized and the College-Ready Program is as successful as preliminary data suggests, the results of the proposed study will provide extraordinary and compelling evidence that not only can education reform be achieved, but also that such reform has a wide range of benefits to society including better health. These results could stimulate new research and efforts to improve health through education reform and other interventions targeting the social determinants of health. H Observational studies have linked poor education to worse health behaviors and worse health outcomes. Thus an intervention to improve educational achievement may have a profound impact on improving health. We will take advantage of a natural experiment to study the impact of education on health and health behaviors, by examining a new education model that is, according to preliminary data, dramatically improving educational achievement among poor, minority students in Los Angeles.
Observational studies have linked poor education to worse health behaviors and worse health outcomes. Thus an intervention to improve educational achievement may have a profound impact on improving health. We will take advantage of a natural experiment to study the impact of education on health and health behaviors, by examining a new education model that is, according to preliminary data, dramatically improving educational achievement among poor, minority students in Los Angeles.
