School Starting Age as a Risk Factor for Adolescent Health

Abstract

The objective of our study was to determine the features of health state formation in senior pupils, depending on the age of entry to the first grade. There were examined 983 pupils of grades 9–10 in Kyiv. The study involved the assessment of adolescent health, distribution of the contingents into groups depending on the child’s age at the time of entry to the first grade. It was found that 70.1 % of adolescents entered the first grade at the age of 6–7 years. Groups of children, whose school starting age was less than 6 years or more than 7 years, were significant. Distribution of pupils in terms of physical health found that about half of adolescents had low levels of physical health. The proportion of adolescents with low levels of physical health was highest among those pupils who entered the first grade under the age of 6 years and lowest one — among those who entered the first grade at the age of 6 and a half — 7 years (p ≤ 0.05). The greatest risk of reducing physical health had children, whose school starting age was under 6 years and from 6 years to 6 years 3 months.

Keywords

• school starting age
• physical health
• adolescents