Good Education and skills
A good education is a building block for health and well-being and can increase our chances of living a long and healthy life. In turn, our health and well-being can affect our ability to learn. Education influences our health and well-being through multiple interconnected pathways. These pathways include employment opportunities and working conditions, health literacy and health-related behaviours, including using health services, and our sense of control and level of social support. Without the opportunity for a good education, heath inequalities can increase through intergenerational cycles of inequality.
Public Health Wales has many programmes that look to improve the health and well-being of children and young people, which affects their ability to learn. Our work in the Wider Determinants of Health Unit focuses on education as a route to better health and reducing inequalities in society.
We have developed a systems map of the factors affecting educational achievement in Wales. The map shows multiple interconnected factors, many beyond the school setting which affect educational outcomes. We are using the map with partners to increase the impact of efforts to reduce the educational attainment gap in Wales.
On this page you will find our educational achievement systems map, available both as a video which guides you through the systems map and a PDF document as well as a literature review of the pathways and relationships between education and health and a summary briefing of the literature review.
Factors affecting educational achievement in Wales - Participatory systems map