Trends in Professional Development for and Collaboration by Health Education Teachers—41 States, 2000–2010

School health education can be an effective means of reducing the prevalence of health-risk behaviors among students.1–3 To be most effective, however, it is critical that those who teach health education have up-to-date knowledge of health topics as well as skills for reaching students. Professional development (PD) is one way teachers can obtain such expertise. For example, a national study of mathematics and science teachers showed that PD can increase teachers’ knowledge and skills.4 Professional development can also increase educators’ confidence in teaching and provides opportunities for them to learn innovative teaching techniques and exchange ideas with colleagues.3 The Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Comprehensive School Health Programs in Grades K-12 recommended that health education teachers should be expected to participate in ongoing, discipline-specific in-service programs to stay abreast of new developments in their field.3 Further, a national study5 found that teachers who had received recent PD on health topics taught more health topics than did teachers without recent PD. Another way to increase the effectiveness of health education is to ensure that it is not taught in isolation. That is, when health education is coordinated with other components of school health, it is likely to have greater effectiveness.2,6 For example, classroom instruction on healthy eating will be better reinforced if students are given the opportunity to choose healthy foods and beverages in the cafeteria and in vending machines.7 Collaboration among different components of school health, such as health education, physical education, and nutrition services, is a key part of coordinated school health and can help schools prevent unhealthy behaviors.8 Although the importance of PD and collaboration among different components of school health is reflected in numerous guidelines and other publications,9–12 to our knowledge, only one study—the national School Health Policies and Practices Study (SHPPS)—has examined the extent to which schools have these in place and how they have changed over time. According to SHPPS,1 between 2000 and 2006, the percentage of states and school districts that provided funding for PD or offered PD for health education teachers on injury prevention and safety, nutrition and dietary behavior, physical activity and fitness, and suicide prevention increased. However, the percentage of states that provided funding for PD or offered PD for health education teachers on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention and other sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention decreased during this time. Further, the percentage of districts that provided funding for PD or offered PD for health education teachers on emotional and mental health, other STD prevention, and violence prevention increased. That study also showed an increase between 2000 and 2006 in the percentage of required health education classes with a teacher who received PD on injury prevention and safety during the 2 years before the study. As for collaboration, SHPPS detected an increase in collaboration between both state- and district-level health education and nutrition services staff between 2000 and 2006. In addition, the study found a decrease in collaboration between state-level health education and health services staff during the same time period. Although the national data SHPPS provides is informative, its usefulness is limited by 2 factors. First, data are only collected every 6 years, and the most current data available are from 2006. Second, because SHPPS is a national study, it does not allow for state-by-state comparisons. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to use the School Health Profiles (Profiles), a state-based surveillance system developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to examine trends from 2000 to 2010 across states in PD for health education teachers and collaboration by health education staff.