Health and School Performance among Danish adolescents: Results from VestLiv - West Jutland Cohort Study

This study examines the impact of a wide range of health measures on school performance at the end of compulsory school (9 years of school). The key questions raised are whether different health problems lowers school performance contributing to a health selection process that could lead to lower adult educational achievement. Data are taken from a birth cohort study of all adolescents born in 1989 (n=3,058) living in a rural county in Denmark. Information was obtained from questionnaires (sent to the adolescents and their parents) and from different national registers (e.g. hospitalization and grades). Results indicate that childhood health is associated with grades in the expected direction (i.e. more health problems are associated with lower grades). The fact that different health measures contribute to lower grades independently points to the existence of multiple causal pathways linking health and school performance.