A fair chance for good health begins with the opportunity for better health choices. At the State Board of Health, one way we help promote health equity for the people of Washington is through Health Impact Reviews.
The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction invited our policy analysts, Caitlin Lang-Perez and Lindsay Herendeen, to present the findings of Health Impact Review (HIR) of ESSB 5395 concerning comprehensive sexual health education, which was a bill from the 2019 legislative session, to the agency’s Sexual Health Education Legislative Workgroup Meeting earlier this month.
The bill would require every public K-12 school to provide comprehensive sexual health education, which is evidence-informed, medically and scientifically accurate, age-appropriate, and inclusive of all members of protected classes by September 1, 2021; and allow families to excuse a child from planned instruction through written request.
A quick summary of the HIR findings include strong evidence that the bill would improve sexual and reproductive health outcomes for students; very strong evidence that improving sexual and reproductive health outcomes would reduce health inequities for multiple groups of students; and unclear evidence on how the bill would impact health inequities for students that opted-out.
The full HIR, including review methods, logic model, strength of evidence analyses, and citations of empirical evidence is available on the HIR web page.
About Health Impact Reviews
An HIR is an objective, non-partisan, evidence-based tool for Legislators and the Governor that examines how legislation may impact health and health equity in Washington. Our policy advisors have completed 79 Reviews at the request of 47 different Legislators since 2013. Legislators use HIRs to:
- Determine if there is enough evidence to support a policy direction
- Build support for bills that may have positive impacts on health or equity
- Determine if a bill will have the intended impact
- Get information to decide how to vote on a colleague’s bill
For more information about Health Impact Reviews, visit the HIR website.
