Because of the nature of individual-level data,
which provides multiple visits by the same students,
comparing data in aggregate form is not possible.
Instead, data displayed in the tables below are calculated
to measure the frequency of visits on a per student
basis. Because of the large number of data, the
impact of ‘‘frequent flyers’’—those students who make
repeat visits to nurses with no discernable diagnoses—
is negligible.
Each poor Black child visited a school nurse an
average of 4.33 times during the school year, seeking
services nearly twice as often as their nonpoor Black
peers. The next most frequent nurse visitors were
poor White children, each of whom saw the school
nurse an average of 3.32 times during the school year.
Poor Hispanic children averaged 3.29 visits per child
during the same period, and poor Asians were the
least frequent visitors, with 1.97 visits per student.
Students in all racial groups saw the school nurse
more frequently if they were poor. However, differences
existed in the extent to which poverty drove visits
among races. As shown in Table 3, White students
stood apart from other racial groups in the wide
difference in visits between poor and nonpoor
students. Poor White students were nearly three times
as likely as their nonpoor peers to visit the school
nurse. Conversely, poor Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians
were, respectively, 1.91%, 2.01%, and 1.77% more