Health Issues Keep Millions of Kids Consistently Out of School, Study Finds – By Steven Ross Johnson (US News) / March 14, 2024
Close to 6% of U.S. kids 5 to 17 years old were chronically absent from school due to injury, illness or disability in 2022, a new analysis shows.
Millions of U.S. children recently experienced chronic absenteeism from school due to injury, illness or disability, with data indicating white and Hispanic children and those from the lowest-income households were more likely to miss class because of such factors.
The findings come from a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.
What the Data Shows
The report says that in 2022, an estimated 5.5% of boys and 6% of girls between 5 and 17 years old missed at least 15 days of school over the past 12 months for health-related reasons, amounting to 5.8% of children overall. That equates to around 3 million kids, the CDC confirms.
