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Abstract:
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A third of students are suspended over a K-12 school career, with greater incidence among minorities. We evaluate whether school suspension may contribute to health disparities among 9593 youth from Add Health without prior suspensions or expulsions. We used exact and nearest neighbor Mahalanobis matching to compare youth suspended for the first time between 1995 and 1996 with non-suspended youth (n=480 suspended, n=1187 non-suspended.) Matching achieved balance on 38 socioeconomic, educational, and health factors measured pre-suspension. We estimated relative risks of educational and health outcomes in 2001 and 2008 of suspended versus non-suspended young adults using a multivariate Poisson working model in the matched sample. In 2001 (ages 18-25), suspended youth had lower likelihood of a high school diploma (IRR 0.90 (0.83, 0.97)) or bachelors degree (IRR 0.48 (0.25, 0.93)) and greater likelihood of arrest (IRR 1.48 (1.07, 2.04)). In 2008 (ages 25-32), suspended youth were more likely to smoke daily (IRR 1.22 (1.02, 1.46)) and have stage 1 hypertension (IRR 1.23 (1.02, 1.48)). We will test whether educational and arrest outcomes in 2001 mediate health outcomes in 2008.
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