How do secondary schools influence teenagers' health behaviours?

The Health Promoting School (HPS) concept suggests that schools affect students' health behaviours through the school's social organisation and culture (non-formal school characteristics/processes), as well as through the formal curriculum. To date, there is little robust evidence of the effectiveness of the HPS. This book adds to that evidence base and has three main components: first, to quantify school effects on a range of pupils' health behaviours - smoking, alcohol drinking, drug-use and physical activity: second, to assess the extent to which the health behaviour profiles of schools are related to health promotion activity: third, to select and analyse qualitative data from three case study schools. Together, the second and third components show the extent to which school processes are associated with school effects on pupils' health behaviours, triangulating data from different methodologies. The results highlight the importance of school processes on students' health behaviours, particularly smoking, and support a holistic or HPS approach to improving health behaviours. This book should be especially useful to teachers, professionals interested in education and parents.