Students ask teachers for health help

NEW YORK, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- Seventy percent of U.S. teachers surveyed are approached by students each semester with questions on personal problems or health issues.

The survey, published in the Journal of School Health, was conducted among academic teachers and administrators working in four schools in New York. Each school had an active school-based health clinic on site.

"Our study shows that relying solely on certified health education teachers to impart health messages and facilitate referrals for services would appear rather limiting given these contextual realities," lead author Dr. Alwyn Cohall of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health said in a statement. "We found that teachers agreed that schools were an important venue for discussing and providing health messages."

Cohall says non-health teachers want help in giving answers to students' health questions, but they express concern about their ability to handle health needs, and "desire additional staff development workshops to address these needs."