Specific diagnostic categories among categories of students

We analyzed the frequency of the five most common diagnostic categories (Message 2) among categories of students and thought it might be interesting to highlight a few trends that emerged from the data.  Rates are described numerically as annual rate per 100 enrolled students in a category, so in essence represent prevalence of conditions.

  •  Preventive diagnostic category:  Students under 18 had the highest frequency of preventive diagnoses (35), compared to an overall rate among all students (16).  Older students 25-29 years old had preventive diagnoses next most frequently (23), while 18-21 year olds had the lowest rate (11).  Females were much higher than males (19 vs. 12).  African American, Asian, and Hispanic students had higher frequencies (22, 28, 22 respectively) than Whites (16); while graduate students were had higher rates than undergrads (18 vs. 10).
  •  Respiratory diagnostic category:  The overall rate of diagnoses in this diagnostic category was 12 for all students (e.g. 12 individuals per 100 enrolled students per year had a diagnosis of a respiratory condition).  Students under 18 years old had much higher rates (42) than those 18-21 years old (13) and 22-34 years old (median of 10 for three age groups combined).  Some variance was also seen among African Americans, Asians, Hispanics and Whites (15, 13, 18, 14), while graduate and undergraduate students had similar rates of respiratory conditions (9 each).
  • Mental Health category:  The overall rate of mental health diagnoses among all students was 4 (e.g. 4 of 100 enrolled students per year had a mental health diagnosis).  Females were higher than males (5 vs. 3); under 18 years old (10) were higher than all other age categories from 18-34 years old (ranging 4-5).  Asian students had the lowest rate among ethnic groups (4) compared to African Americans (6), Hispanics (8), and Whites (5).
  •  The other two common categories (skin and nails, infectious non-STI) were highest among females and students under 18 years old, but otherwise there was not much variation for the overall rates of 5 for each category among all students.

So, perhaps not surprisingly, we can demonstrate important variances in prevalence of conditions and utilization of health care services among groups of students.  Applied to schools with similar characteristics, it is thus possible to do benchmarking against CHSN, and also better plan health service needs based on population demographics.

James Turner, M.D. is Executive Director of NSNI & Principal Investigator of the CHSN project.