Research based on decades of experience in the developing world has identified educational status, especially the status of the mother, as a major predictor of health outcomes and that the literature indicates that the gradient in health outcomes by educational attainment has steepened over the last four decades across the United States. Since the 1990s, while the average life expectancy in the United States has been steadily increasing, life expectancy has actually decreased for people without a high school education, especially white women.

To understand the complex relationship between education and health and how this understanding could inform our nation's investments and policies, the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Population Health Improvement held a public workshop in Washington, DC, on June 5, 2014. This workshop, which featured presentations and extensive discussion periods, also explored how the health and education sectors can work together more effectively to achieve improvements in both health status and educational achievement. This report summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.

Contents

• THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
• PLANNING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH AND EDUCATION WORKING TOGETHER FOR COMMON GOALS
• ROUNDTABLE ON POPULATION HEALTH IMPROVEMENT
• Reviewers
• Acronyms and Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction and Overview
  • THE ROUNDTABLE ON POPULATION HEALTH IMPROVEMENT
  • WORKSHOP SCOPE AND ORGANIZATION OF THE SUMMARY
  • REPORT ON THE JUNE 4 NIH MEETING ON THE EVIDENCE FOR EDUCATION IMPROVING HEALTH
• 2. Why Educational Attainment Is Crucial to Improving Population Health
  • DISCUSSION
• 3. How Can the Health Sector Support Education Sector Efforts at the Level of Students, Families, and Schools
  • HEALTHY AND READY TO LEARN
  • LEVERAGING THE LINKS BETWEEN HEALTH AND EDUCATION
  • DISCUSSION
• 4. How the Nation’s Health Care Expenditures Reduce Education Funding
  • DISCUSSION
• 5. The Potential of Health Sector Partners to Contribute to the Implementation of the Best Evidence About What Supports Educational Attainment
  • MAKING HEALTH HAPPEN IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
  • PROGRAMS AT THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
  • PARENTCORPS
  • DISCUSSION
• 6. State and Local Collaboration Between the Health and Education Sectors
  • MODELS OF STATE AND LOCAL COLLABORATION BETWEEN HEALTH AND EDUCATION
  • REGIONAL DISPARITIES IN HEALTH AND EDUCATION
  • REDUCING DROPOUT RATES TO IMPROVE HEALTH OUTCOMES
  • DISCUSSION
• 7. Final Reflections and Comments
• APPENDIXES
  • Appendix A References
  • Appendix B Workshop Agenda
  • Appendix C Biographical Sketches of Workshop Speakers and Moderators

Rapporteurs: Joe Alper, Darla Thompson, and Alina Baciu.

This activity was supported by contracts between the National Academy of Sciences and The California Endowment (20112338), the California HealthCare Foundation (17102), Health Partners, Health Resources and Services Administration (HHSH25034015T), Kaiser East Bay Community Foundation (20131471), The Kresge Foundation (101288), the Mayo Clinic, Missouri Foundation for Health (12-0879-SOF-12), the National Association of County and City Health Officials (2013-010204), Nemours, New York State Health Foundation (12-01708), Novo Nordisk, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (70555). The views presented in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the activity.

Suggested citation:

IOM (Institute of Medicine). 2015. Exploring opportunities for collaboration between health and education to improve population health: Workshop summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

NOTICE: The workshop that is the subject of this workshop summary was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.