RESEARCH ARTICLE Identifying and evaluating school environmental health indicators Shao Lin 1,2 & Yi Lu 1 & Ziqiang Lin 1 & Xiaobo Xue Romeiko 1 & Tia Marks 1 & Wangjian Zhang 1 & Haider A. Khwaja 1,3 & Guanghui Dong 4 & George Thurston 5 Received: 4 November 2019 /Accepted: 12 February 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract Children’ s health, attendance, and academic performance may be affected by school environmental hazards. While prior studies evaluated home environment and health, few have evaluated indicators of school in-/outdoor environment and health. This study addresses this knowledge gap by systematically reviewing and evaluating outdoor and indoor indicators of school environment and student’ s health and performance in New York State (NYS). We also evaluate statistical methodologies to address highly correlated indicators and integrate multiple exposures. Multiple school environmental indicators were identified from various existing NYS datasets. We summarized data sources, completeness, geographic and temporal coverage, and data quality for each indicator. Each indicator was evaluated by scientific basis/relevance, analytic soundness/feasibility, and interpretation/utility, and validated using objective NYS data. Finally, advanced variable selection methods were described and discussed. We have identified and evaluated multiple school environmental health indicators. It was found that mold and moisture problems, ventilation problems, ambient ozone, and PM 2.5 levels are among the top priorities of school environmental issues/indicators in NYS, which were also consistent while using NYS data. Choice of best variable selection method should be made based on the research questions and data characteristics. The school environmental health indicators identified, and variable selection methods evaluated, in this study could be used by other researchers to help school officials and policy makers initiate prevention programs. Keywords School environment . Students’ performance . student’ s health . Attendance . Indicators Introduction Nearly 50 million US public school students spend two-thirds of their day in school buildings (Frumkin et al. 2009). Therefore, school-aged children may be exposed to air pollut- ants and harmful chemicals in unhealthy school environments that may affect their health, attendance, and academic perfor- mance (Belanger et al. 2006; Simons et al. 2010). Compared with adults, children are more susceptible to air pollutants because they breathe in 50% more air per unit of body weight than adults (Bearer 1995; Schwartz 2004), they have higher ventilation rates than adults because of their higher activity levels (Bateson and Schwartz 2008), and they breathe closer to the ground, where air pollutants tend to be more concen- trated (Bearer 1995). Prior studies found that outdoor air pol- lutants such as particulate matter, black carbon, ozone, and nitrogen dioxide can exacerbate respiratory symptoms (Jacquemin et al. 2009; Margolis et al. 2009; Meng et al. 2007; Trasande and Thurston 2005), and outdoor air quality near schools may differ however, from levels measured in regional ambient air. Many outdoor factors may affect pollut- ant levels at school sites such as proximity to industrial facil- ities, density of passing traffic, school bus idling laws, type of bus fuels, and meteorological factors (Kim 2005; Jacob and Winner 2009; Janssen et al. 2001; Kinney 2008; Mohai et al. 2011). These environmental factors could lead to health Responsible Editor: Philippe Garrigues * Shao Lin slin@albany.edu 1 Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University at Albany, State University of New York, 1 University Place, Room 212D, Rensselaer, NY 12144, USA 2 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University at Albany, State University of New York, Rensselaer, NY, USA 3 Wadsworth Laboratory, New York State Department of Health, Albany, NY, USA 4 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China 5 Department of Environmental Medicine, School of Medicine, New York University, New York, NY, USA Environmental Science and Pollution Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-08092-w