Prevalence of School Policies, Programs, and Facilities That Promote a Healthy Physical School Environment

OBJECTIVES: We examined the extent to which schools in the United States have health-promoting policies, programs, and facilities. METHODS: We analyzed data from the School Health Policies and Programs Study 2000. RESULTS: We found that public schools (vs private and Catholic schools), urban schools (vs rural and suburban schools), and schools with larger enrollments (vs smaller schools) had more health-promoting policies, programs, and facilities in place. On average, middle schools had 11.0 and middle/junior and high schools had 10.4 out of a possible 18 policies, programs, and facilities. CONCLUSIONS: Although some schools had many healthy physical environment features, room for improvement exists. Resources are available to help schools improve their health-promoting policies, programs, and facilities.