The DOI matches its Crossref record; 232 of the 233 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
School attendance problems and absenteeism as early warning signals: review and implications for health-based protocols and school-based practices
Open accessAbstract
School attendance has been historically linked to healthy states of functioning, whereas school attendance problems/absenteeism have been historically linked to unhealthy states of functioning. Indeed, school attendance and its problems are deeply embedded within multiple domains of functioning at both analytic and systemic levels. This article utilizes complex systems theory and the concept of early warning signals to illustrate how changes in school attendance could indicate instability and perhaps sudden transitions to unhealthy states of functioning for students, families, schools, and communities. The article reviews how school attendance problems/absenteeism intersect with functioning at analytic (academic, social–emotional, mental health, physical health, family) and systemic (school and community) levels. The article also includes recommendations for how viewing changes in school attendance as early warning signals could improve health-based protocols (enhancing access to care; integrating systems of care) and school-based practices (developing multi-tiered systems of support models and community asset maps; modifying educational and policy perspectives). A primary theme involves more streamlined efforts to identify movement from healthy to unhealthy states among individuals to assign proactive and personalized treatment avenues (health-based protocols) and among systems to enact needed intervention supports and reforms (school-based practices).
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“Conversely, the absence from school impedes socialemotional development, academic performance and poses future consequences such as unemployment and school dropout, increasing the risk of social exclusion”
From “So That You Can Feel Well”: Perspectives of Students with Social, Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties on Factors that Support School Attendance (2025) · cites this paper as Kearney et al., 2023
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Cites
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Harnessing AI to Foster Equity in Education: Opportunities, Challenges, and Emerging Strategies
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“This could be seen from the perspective raised by Kearney et al. (2023), in which they describe “changes in school attendance as early warning signals” (p. 1) that may help professionals to better see what actions to take in order to prevent absenteeism.”
BackgroundEnderle, C. (2025) · School Mental Health · doi:10.1007/s12310-025-09764-z · Cited by 12
“Conversely, the absence from school impedes social-emotional development, academic performance and poses future consequences such as unemployment and school dropout, increasing the risk of social exclusion (Ansari et al., 2020; Kearney et al., 2023; Keppens, 2023; Liu et al., 2021).”
Metadata
- Authors
- Kearney, C. A., Dupont, R., Fensken, M., & Gonzálvez, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Nevada, Las Vegas (US)
- University of Alicante (ES)
- Corresponding author
- Kearney, Christopher A.
- Venue
- Frontiers in Education
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2023-08-30
- Volume
- 8
- ISSN
- 2504-284X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4386330902
- Cited by
- 71
- References
- 233
- Citations by year
- 2026: 42 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 2
- FWCI
- 51.78
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Education (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- RUA, Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Alicante (Universidad de Alicante) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Universidad de Alicante
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Youth Substance Use and School Attendance
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › School Health and Nursing Education
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Workplace Health and Well-being
- Keywords
- school attendance, absenteeism, early warning indicators, complexity theory, mental health, social-emotional functioning, family functioning, school-based practice, multi-tiered systems of support, community asset mapping, systems of care, health care access, education policy
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