Big Jump in School-Based Health Centers
August 29, 2013
|News
When California elementary, middle and high school students return to school this fall, almost 230,000 of them will have access to health care through school-based health centers. That’s an increase of more than 25,000, the largest one-year jump since the California School Health Centers Association started keeping track in 2004.
School-based health clinics have more than doubled in California in the past decade — from 108 in 2002 to 226 in operation now. Another 37 California schools are in the process of opening clinics.
Nationally, about 2,000 school-based health clinics offer care to about two million students, according to the School-Based Health Alliance, a national advocacy group.