Second only to the home/family environment, the school is the key setting for influencing the healthy development of children and youth. Yet, our understanding of the social, physical, and other aspects of this environment has often been limited by a narrow focus on transmitting health knowledge on selected health problems.

Despite being often studied, the school setting remains very much a mystery in:

• how it promotes health
• how interventions can be sustained over time
• how agencies, parents, and schools can work together
• how public health, school, and other systems can be encouraged to change their policies, programs, services, and practices.

This website presents a new framework and new research strategies to help us broaden our understanding of school-based and school-linked health promotion. This site also describes the research, identifies research reviews and reports, lists several themes and topics that are being developed, provides links to related research centres, and provides copies of recent literature reviews undertaken by Canadian researchers.

In the future, this site will also provide evidence-based practice and policy guidelines as they are developed or adapted by SHRN members.