Perhaps you live in a neighborhood with low performing schools, or your family lives in poverty. Maybe you have a disability, or your home environment is not physically safe. What if your family does not have means for you to join enrichment activities, or your neighborhood does not have parks where you can play safely? These factors affect a child’s ability to learn.
Conversely, educational indicators point leaders and policymakers to examine the larger circles of influence that impinge on educational outcomes. Luckily, education—among all the social determinants of health and well-being—is the most malleable. In other words, if a community can improve educational outcomes, it will reap improvements in all other determinants of health.