Health and Wellness
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Profiles Results and Data Requests
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The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) uses Profiles data to look at nationwide trends and provide leaders and decision-makers with their findings. They publish reports of representative data on school health policies and practices in states, large urban school districts, and territories. The CDC reports can be accessed on the CDC School Health Profiles website.
Within BPS, Profiles data is used to monitor the district’s health and wellness policies and programs over time. The data are used broadly to assist schools, the Department of Education, and community health organizations to understand how school practices affect student health and academic performance. Results from Profiles are used to help the district get funding, target school resources, plan professional development for school staff, and develop and implement policies and practices to improve student health. Profiles is an important measurement tool used specifically to evaluate the impact and implementation of grants, projects, plans, and policies, including the CDC-funded Empowering Teens Through Health program, BPS District Wellness Policies, the Superintendent’s Strategic Plan, and health and wellness projects supported by ESSER funds.
School leaders and wellness councils also receive individualized School Wellness Reports with their data that helps them assess their implementation of the District Wellness Policy compared to the district as a whole.
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How are these data analyzed?
Once Profiles administration is complete, the data is processed and analyzed by the OHW Data & Evaluation Team. We perform data quality checks to ensure the consistency and accuracy of the results. We total the data from all the schools to maintain anonymity. Statistical software is used to compute descriptive statistics.
Boston data included in CDC publications undergo additional processing. More information is included in their reports. The CDC reports can be accessed on the CDC School Health Profiles website.
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When will 2022 Profiles data become available?
In 2020, the OHW Data & Evaluation Team used aggregate data to create tables and charts by question for each survey. We hope to release similar tables by Fall 2022.
Individual School Wellness Reports using data provided by Profiles will be shared with each school by Fall 2022. The reports share your schools’ implementation of the District Wellness Policy and can be used to inform your Wellness Action Plan for SY22-23.
District-level Profiles results will also be included in the quantitative District Wellness Policy Annual Report published and presented at the School Committee in the Spring of odd-numbered years. This report relies heavily on Profiles data to measure district-wide implementation of various components of the Wellness Policy. Previous reports can be found here.
Since CDC reports include data from school health policies and practices in states, large urban school districts, and territories nationwide, these reports are typically released 1.5 years after data collection is complete. For example, CDC published results for the 2018 Profiles in November 2019, 17 months after data collection concluded in Boston.
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How can I get a copy of my school’s previous wellness reports?
The Office of Health and Wellness provides each school with a personalized School Wellness Report every two years. These reports help school leaders and wellness councils look at some of their school’s Profiles data categorized by the areas of the BPS Wellness Policy. Metrics from all eight areas of the District Wellness Policy (Cultural Proficiency, School Food and Nutrition Promotion, Comprehensive Physical Activity, Comprehensive Health Education, Healthy School Environment, Health Services, Safe and Supportive Schools, Staff Wellness) are included. The reports also let schools see how their implementation of the policy compares to district data for their grade bands. School Wellness Reports are available for 2016, 2018, and 2020.
If you need access to your school’s previous Wellness Reports, please contact profiles@bostonpublicschools.org. -
How can I access Profiles data?
Under development
Contact:
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Sarah Page, Data and Evaluation Manager
TBD, Survey Coordinator
