February 2004 Volume 4, Number 12
A report from the Center for Health and Health Care in Schools on the policies, politics and financing of health programming in schools

In This Issue

The Strange Case of the Disappearing Disparities 

It was expected to be a base line review of racial and ethnic disparities in health care, but a report issued by the Department of Health and Human Services in December turned out to talk less about disparities than about the favorable showings of "priority populations" on some indicators of health and well-being.

The State of Sex Education in American Schools 

Saying, "The debate over whether to have sex education in American schools is over," three groups who polled the general public and school principals reported January 29 that only 7 percent of Americans believe sex education should not be taught in schools.

Doctors Often Don't Ask, Don't Tell Young Patients about Tobacco Cessation 

Family physicians and, to an even greater degree, pediatricians fail to use the National Cancer Institute's five components of tobacco cessation counseling when they talk to young patients, thereby missing many opportunities to help children and adolescents stop smoking, according to physicians who responded to questions about how they handle tobacco cessation for patients 18 years old or younger.

Fast Food and Obesity—Is There a Connection? 

Consumption of fast food by children increased dramatically from 1970 to the mid-1990s—it's estimated that children now get 10 percent of their total energy intake from fast foods, compared to 2 percent in the late 1970s. That's in part because the number of fast-food restaurants more than doubled between 1972 and 1995, and massive advertising campaigns were aimed at children and their parents.

First Steps in Pediatric Drug Testing: Setting Ethics and Standards 

There was a time when no pharmaceutical manufacturer included children in safety or efficacy tests of new drugs. That did not prevent doctors from prescribing those drugs to children, usually on the premise that children's ailments are similar to those of adults, so a dose of a medication approved for adults, calibrated according to the child's weight or age, would be appropriate.

Credits: Virginia Robinson, Editor, robinsoneditor@attglobal.net
Health & Health Care in Schools is a monthly journal published in html and PDF versions by The Center for Health and Health Care in Schools. Support for Health & Health Care in Schools is provided by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.