Better Health, Better Learning Report - July 2017 SCORE Better Health Better Learning Report_July 20 | Page 4

Tennessee Context According to the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) Office of Coordinated School Health, during the 2015-16 school year, 226,378 students in Tennessee public schools had a chronic illness or disability diagnosis. This number represents 23 percent of all Tennessee public school students statewide. The most common diagnoses of those students included asthma (30 percent), ADHD/ADD (24 percent), and severe allergies (15 percent). 4 Between the 2004-05 and 2014-15 school years, chronic illness diagnoses increased 85 percent, including a 78 percent increase in asthma and 52 percent increase in diabetes diagnoses. 5 Tennessee students trail their peers nationally across a wide variety of health outcomes and behaviors (Figure 1). Youth health data from Tennessee show the health-related challenges many students must overcome to achieve success in school and life beyond graduation. FIGURE 1 HEALTH OUTCOMES AND BEHAVIORS IN TENNESSEE 6 TENNESSEE US AVERAGE High School Students Who Eat Vegetables Three Or More Times Per Day 9.7% 14.8% Teen Birthrate 33% 24% Youth Smoking 11.5% 10.8% Youth Obesity 18.6% 13.9% Children With One Or More Emotional, Behavioral, Or Developmental Conditions 21% 17% Low-Birthweight Babies 9.1% 8% Children With Asthma 12% 9% Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015 and Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2017. 3