PEDIATRICS Vol. 69 No. 6 June 1982, pp. 739-746
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School Absence: A Problem for the Pediatrician

Michael Weitzman MD1, Lorraine V. Klerman DPH1, George Lamb MD1, Jean Menary MS1, and Joel J. Alpert MD1

1 Department of Pediatrics, Boston City Hospital, Boston; Florence Heller Graduate School for Advanced Studies in Social Welfare, Brandeis University, Waltham; and Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Children who are frequently or persistently absent from school tend to perform poorly in school and are likely to drop out before graduation from high school. Excessive school absence has significant implications in terms of maladaptive behavior, wasted opportunities, and future unemployment and welfare costs. Epidemiologic information about this problem suggests that physical and mental health problems of students or their families are the sole or contributing cause of this behavior in more than 50% of cases. Excessive school absence may signal such health problems as poor coping with or management of chronic illness, masked depression, teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, inappropriate responses to minor illnesses, or severe family dysfunction. School absence patterns appear to be a readily available, easy-to-use marker of childhood dysfunction which lends itself to screening large numbers of children for unmet health needs. Attention to this area of child behavior as part of routine health care will frequently uncover previously unrecognized health problems in children and their families.

Submitted on February 2, 1981
Accepted on July 16, 1981




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