Health Status and School Performance of Elementary School Children in a Philippine Barangay

Background: Though several studies have already shown how health
affects a child’s school performance, more local studies need to be
done, which may be used in a targeted approach to bolster the school
performance of the Filipino child from the health perspective.
Objective: This cross-sectional study aimed to determine if there is
a significant relationship between the health status, defined as the
presence or absence of morbidities, and school performance, measured
by the final grade point averages (GPAs), of the children enrolled in
Calubcub 1.0 Elementary School (C1ES).
Methods: With parental consent, C1ES children underwent physical
examination (PE) last March 2007 and the frequency distribution of the
morbidities found in the children was obtained from the accomplished
PE forms. Treatments and referrals were made as necessary. With the
approval of the principal, the final GPAs of the children for that school
year were obtained from the school records. Two hundred fourteen
children were included in this study.
Results and Conclusions: Stunting was found to be significantly
correlated to the GPA (p<0.01) with correlation coefficient of -0.186.
No significant correlation was found between all the other morbidities
found in the children and their GPA.