176366 Association Between Per Student Expenditure, Resource Allocation, and Educators' Risk of Physical Assault

Monday, October 27, 2008: 10:45 AM

Starr K. Sage, MPH , Reg Inj Prev Res Center/Center Violence Prev and Control, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Susan G. Gerberich, PhD , MCOHS/RIRRC/CVPC, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Nancy M. Nachreiner, PhD, MPH , Reg Inj Prev Res Center/Center Violence Prev and Control, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Andrew D. Ryan, MS , Regional Injury Prevention Research Center, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Timothy R. Church, PhD , Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Patricia M. McGovern, PhD, MPH , Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Steven J. Mongin, MS , Regional Injury Prevention Research Center, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
  
Background: The relation between school spending and violence has yet to be explored. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the association between annual per student expenditure and physical assault against Minnesota educators. Methods: We utilized data from the Minnesota Educators' Study (MES) and Minnesota Department of Education school-level fiscal and demographic data. The MES examined a randomly selected cohort of state-licensed kindergarten-grade 12 employed educators. From mailed questionnaires, response rates for both Phase I (comprehensive data collection on violent events) and Phase II (case-control) were 84%. Cases experienced a work-related physical assault event in the previous 12 months; controls reported no assaults. Exposure data were collected for cases (month prior to event) and non-assaulted controls (randomly selected months). Analyses were conducted on 213 cases and 606 controls. Results: Using directed acyclic graphs to guide selection of confounders, multivariate analyses suggested an unexpected increased risk of physical assault with increasing levels of annual per student expenditures (reference less than $7900): $7900-8700 (OR)=1.4, 95% CI: 0.8, 2.4); $8700-9900 (OR=1.7, 95% CI: 1.0, 2.9); greater than $9900 (OR=1.9, 95% CI: 1.0, 3.6). Additional analyses will further explore the potential for unmeasured confounders as well as the relation between the allocation of per student expenditure to various school program areas (e.g., pupil support services, athletic programming, etc.) and risk of assault. Conclusion: Results of analyses could potentially serve to guide school policies for directing funds to key programs areas that may serve to reduce violent events in schools.

Learning Objectives:
At the conclusion of the presentation, participants will be able to: 1) Understand the nature of school funding and school resource allocation in Minnesota schools. 2) Identify several school level expenditure factors that may contribute to or protect against physical assault against Minnesota’s educators. 3) Describe several possible school funding implications of study results.

Keywords: Violence Prevention, Occupational Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been a member of the Minnesota Educators' research team since its inception, four years ago, and I have researched and conducted the analyses to be presented.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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