World Health Day is celebrated on 7 April each year, marking the founding anniversaryof theWorld Health Organization in 1948.

 

Children washing hands in Ghana
 

The Impact of Poor Health on Education

For children across the world especially inlow incomecountries, poor health negativelyimpacts on education.

Poor health resulting from inadequate nutrition, parasitic worm infections,lack of access to clean drinking water or appropriate sanitation and hygiene practices, affects school attendance and a child’s ability to learn.
 
66 million primary school-age children attend school hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone, while over 443 million school days are missed every year by children who consume contaminated water.

 

Using the school based platformto improve child health

School Health & Nutrition (SHN)programmes are increasingly being recognised as a way to increase primary education enrollment, retention andare an effective way to improve child healthreachingchildren on agrand scale.

Some Effective School Health & Nutrition Interventions

  • School-based deworming is universally recognised as a safe, simple and cost-effective solution for treating children with worm infections, which negatively impact on theirlearningabilities anddevelopment.
  • School feeding programmes, which have been carefully designed,have been shown to increase access to education and learning, as well as toimprove children’s health and nutrition, especially when integrated into comprehensive SHN programmes.
  • Promoting Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in schools whichsees access and messages of good hygiene, sufficient and better quality drinking-water and basic sanitation, can dramaticallyreduce the number of childrensuffering fromdiarrhoeal diseases.