Assessment of Exposure to High-Performing Schools and Risk of Adolescent Substance Use: A Natural Experiment.

ABSTRACT:

Importance

Although school environments are thought to influence health behaviors, experimental data assessing causality are lacking, and which aspects of school environments may be most important for adolescent health are unknown.

Objective

To test whether exposure to high-performing schools is associated with risky adolescent health behaviors.

Design, setting, and participants

This natural experiment used admission lotteries, which mimic random assignment, to estimate the association of school environments and adolescent health. A survey of 1270 students who applied to at least 1 of 5 high-performing public charter schools in low-income minority communities in Los Angeles, California. Schools had an academic performance ranked in the top tertile of Los Angeles Count

SUBMITTER: Dudovitz RN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6350909 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature