Seniors??? Health Improves, As Do Children???s Academic Performance and Behavior, When Seniors Volunteer in Inner-City Elementary Schools

NEW YORK CITY, April 5 ??? Senior citizens significantly improve their physical, social and cognitive activity by volunteering in public inner-city elementary schools, and children???s academic achievement and behavior markedly improves as well, according to four new studies in the latest issue of the Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of The New York Academy of Medicine.

The findings are based upon the first randomized controlled trial of the national ???Experience Corps??? program, which now exists in 18 cities. This in-school volunteer program proved to be a win-win situation in the Baltimore schools that were analyzed, improving the chances of success for underserved children in resource-strapped settings while providing needed mental and physical
stimulation for the rapidly growing senior population.

???With the aging of the population, people will be living one-third of their lives after retirement. It is imperative that we develop effective health promotion for this last third of life so that those living longer are healthier,??? said Linda Fried, M.D., M.P.H., lead author of one of the studies. Fried is Director of the Center on Aging and Health and of the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.

Experience Corps was pilot tested in the 1999-2000 school year in six public elementary schools in Baltimore that were randomly assigned to receive the program or not. A total of 1,194 children in kindergarten through third grade participated. Of the 128 seniors recruited, 70 worked as volunteers and 58 were in the control group. The volunteers, ranging in age from 60 to 86 and mostly African American, served as volunteers in a variety of roles in classrooms and libraries for at least 15 hours a week.

Seniors??? physical activity, strength, social networks and cognitive activity increased ???significantly??? after only four to eight months in the program, researchers found. Academic achievement improved among participating children and their negative and antisocial behaviors decreased during the same brief time span, according to an accompanying study led by George W. Rebok, Ph.D., Professor of Mental Health in The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Third-graders in participating schools scored significantly higher on a standardized reading test than children in the control schools, follow up studies showed. The number of children referred to the principal???s office for misbehavior dramatically decreased by about half in the Experience Corps schools, making the classrooms more teachable for all students and improving teacher effectiveness. School principals reported that the presence of senior volunteers created a calmer, more respectful classroom environment, a critical change considering the rise in school violence in recent years.

???Relatively little research has focused on the impact of older adults on the well-being of young children, but this shows that cross-age interaction can produce positive outcomes,??? Rebok said. Urban public schools provide education to the majority of the children in this country, but are underfunded and overworked, he pointed out. Older adults can provide some of the additional attention needed, while benefitting by remaining productive and socially engaged.

The achievement of children up through third grade is a major predictor of their subsequent educational and occupational outcomes, past research has shown. Children who do not learn to read by third grade are at risk for failure in school. High school graduation rates in Baltimore City were only 57.4 percent in 2003, indicating inadequacies in their early education.

Senior citizen volunteers in Baltimore were therefore trained in roles that principals identified as the schools??? greatest unmet needs: literacy support, working in the school libraries, and working on violence prevention programs. Seniors helped children pick and read books in the library, and taught children peer conflict resolution skills that allowed them to solve problems and play nonviolently. Each senior volunteer was offered a stipend of $150-200 month for his or her time to reimburse for expenses, a strong incentive considering their average reported income was less than $15,000.

A rigorous cost-effectiveness model of the Experience Corps in Baltimore, also published in this issue of the Journal, showed that even though the stipends pose a cost burden, the program will ultimately be cost-effective and possibly cost-saving in the long run if only a small number of participating students change from not graduating high school to graduating high school. That is because high school graduates will enjoy greater lifetime earnings than high school dropouts.

The Journal of Urban Health is published quarterly for The New York Academy of Medicine. The Academy is a non-profit institution founded in 1847 that is dedicated to enhancing the health of the public through research, education and advocacy, with a particular focus on urban populations, especially the disadvantaged.

Posted on April 5, 2004

 Print   Subscribe

Contact:
Andrew J. Martin
Director of Communications
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10029
212-822-7285
amartin@nyam.org

Press Release Archive