A recent study in JAMA Network Open sheds light on how school attendance influences the spread of infectious diseases, using COVID-19 as a case study. Researchers analyzed the natural age cutoff for kindergarten eligibility in California to compare COVID-19 rates between children old enough to start school and those who were not. This approach, called regression discontinuity, offers a way to rapidly understand the role of schools in disease transmission and evaluate the effectiveness of within-school prevention measures without requiring additional data collection or school closures.

Truancy rates have risen faster in developed English-speaking countries since the Covid-19 pandemic than in non-English-speaking countries, according to a new working paper by UCL researchers.

Teenage girls are also increasingly more likely to skip school than boys across Anglophone countries.

In the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Oregon legislature funded 19 Project Turnkey sites to the tune of $74.7 million. This funding allowed communities to purchase local motels and convert them into shelters, known as Turnkey sites, that differ from the typical structure.

Researchers with Portland State's Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative (HRAC) have released a new report that examines the impacts of Turnkey shelters and the effectiveness of the model. Those findings indicate the Turnkey model may be the key to addressing homelessness in a way that offers space and time for individuals to move from living unsheltered to stable housing.

At most sites, guests stay in private rooms and have access to food and hygiene supplies, case management and other on-site services and report a sense of community between the guests and staff.

“There is an emerging understanding that we need to do more than what is typically provided in a congregate emergency shelter setting,” said Anna Rockhill, lead researcher and author of the report. “The study points to a model that is missing in many communities and that is key to efforts to help people move from homelessness to more appropriate and stable housing and increase their well-being more generally.”

In reflecting on the progress that she’d made since entering a Project Turnkey shelter, a guest said, “I couldn’t have done it anywhere else.”