A Comprehensive Approach to School Health Program Needs Assessments

摘要

ABSTRACT:An assessment of health promotion needs represents a fundamental step for developing comprehensive school health programs. This project developed and tested an approach for school districts to use when conducting a district‐wide needs assessment of school health programs. The approach assumes a needs assessment should be multidimensional and comprehensive. Seven priority health‐related behaviors were included as well as eight components of a school health program identified by Kolbe. This paper describes each aspect of the needs assessment, discusses the importance of perspectives provided by each component, and provides recommendations for districts interested in conducting an assessm