Children's health and the environment: public health issues and challenges for risk assessment.

Dear Readers,Our winter issue features many excellent book reviews that cover a fascinating range of subjects and experiences, such as: crossing a harbour to an extraordinary island full of treasure (The Riddlemaster), examining issues such as poverty, racism, addiction, and healing (Dreaming in Indian); and exploring the delightful flora and fauna of Australia (Simone in Australia). There are many more books to choose from and we hope you enjoy the variety.We also take great pleasure announcing that our new issue has book reviews from the recently updated Children’s Health Fiction Titles List, including: Fishing with Grandma, Mon ami Claire, Noni Speaks Up, Saila and Betty, and Tattle-tell. The update includes titles from 2014 to 2016 and we encourage readers to have a look at the full list, A Selective Collection of Children’s Health Fiction 2014 – 2016, in the University of Alberta’s Education and Research Archive (ERA).The Children’s Health Fiction list was created to help libraries and parents looking for high quality stories that help children to better understand and cope with health issues in their lives. Information about the project, a link to the original titles list, and guidance for selecting children’s fictional works on health-related topics, was published in the October 2014 Special Issue of the Deakin Review of Children’s Literature (Vol. 4, No. 2).On a final note in the way of announcements, we are delighted to offer a peer-reviewed article that “describes why and how the University of Alberta Libraries built a Spanish language children’s literature collection.” You will find it under the “Articles” heading of the Table of Contents. All of us at the Deakin Review wish you a peaceful and happy winter season filled with good books and many visits to the library.Best wishes,Robert Desmarais, Managing Editor (with thanks to Sandy Campbell & Maria Tan for an update on the Children’s Health Fiction Titles List)

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Incorporating Social Determinants Of Health Into Risk Assessment To Enhance Children'S Health And Reduce Inequities: A Bi-National Perspective

ISEE Conference Abstracts ◽

10.1289/isee.2015.2015-2871 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 2015 (1) ◽

pp. 2871

Author(s):

Allyson Beasley ◽

Neal Fann ◽

Cynthia Merse ◽

Margot Brown

Keyword(s):

Risk Assessment ◽

Social Determinants Of Health ◽

Social Determinants ◽

Determinants Of Health ◽

Children's Health ◽

Children’S Health ◽

National Perspective

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The Impact of Children's Public Health Insurance Expansions on Educational Outcomes

Forum for Health Economics & Policy ◽

10.2202/1558-9544.1137 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Phillip B Levine ◽

Diane Schanzenbach

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Health Insurance ◽

Health Status ◽

Educational Outcomes ◽

Test Scores ◽

Children's Health ◽

Public Health Insurance ◽

Children’S Health ◽

Percentage Point Increase ◽

The Impact

This paper examines the impact of public health insurance expansions through both Medicaid and SCHIP on children's educational outcomes, measured by 4th and 8th grade reading and math test scores, available from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). We use a triple difference estimation strategy, taking advantage of the cross-state variation over time and across ages in children's health insurance eligibility. Using this approach, we find that test scores in reading, but not math, increased for those children affected at birth by increased health insurance eligibility. A 50 percentage point increase in eligibility is found to increase reading test scores by 0.09 standard deviations. We also examine whether the improvements in educational outcomes can be at least partially attributed to improvements in health status itself. First, we provide further evidence that increases in eligibility are linked to improvements in health status at birth. Second, we show that better health status at birth (measured by rates of low birth-weight and infant mortality), is linked to improved educational outcomes. Although the methods used to support this last finding do not completely eliminate potentially confounding factors, we believe it is strongly suggestive that improving children's health will improve their classroom performance.

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