Greenville Health System: School-Based Health Centers

The United Way of Greenville County (UWGC) received a 2014 Social Innovation Fund (SIF) grant to support the implementation of the OnTrack Greenville initiative, a collective impact dropout-prevention program for middle grade students. Greenville Health System (now known as Prisma Health – Upstate) is a subgrantee of UWGC that implemented School-Based Health Centers (SBHC). These SBHCs were integrated into existing school health room frameworks to provide a variety of medical services not otherwise available in schools.

Study Goals:

The evaluation builds additional evidence for the SBHC’s model impact on student attendance. The evaluation also examines additional outcomes, including course grades and behavior. The goal is to contribute to the national conversation on the relationship between health and educational outcomes, and the effectiveness of integrating health services within community-based settings.

Research Questions:

The evaluation included impact and implementation research questions. Some of the research questions were:

• Impact Questions:
  • Did student who used SBHC services have higher attendance rates than matched comparison students?
  • Did students who used SBHC services demonstrate improved course performance in English language arts and math?
  • Did students who used SBHC services have fewer behavioral incidents than matched comparison students?
  • Were students who used SBHC services more likely to have an identified medical home than matched comparison students?
  • Following implementation of the SBHC model, was there an increase in the number of students who returned to class after a health visit at treatment middle schools?
  • Following implementation of the SBHC model, was there an increase in the awareness of the SBHC’s purpose and services offered among school staff members at treatment middle schools?
• Implementation Questions:
  • What factors influenced implementation?
  • What proportion of students participated in SBHC activities?
  • What proportion of students used specific services?
  • What access trends were observed among subgroups of students?

Findings:

The evaluation found the following:

• There were no significant differences in average daily attendance or chronic absenteeism between SBHC students and comparison students.
• Students who used services at SBHCs showed significant growth in Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) math scores compared to matched comparison students.
• Students who used the SBHCs received, on average, 0.84 fewer days of out-of-school suspension and 3.10 fewer hours of in-school suspension than matched comparison students in the academic year 2016-2017.
• In academic year 2016-2017, the OnTrack Greenville schools had between 16 and 20 percent of their student population using the SBHC.
• Sports physicals were the reason for almost half of student visits to SBHCs in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018.

For more information, download the full report and report brief.