Chronic absence is defined as a situation in which a student misses 10 percent or more of school days in a year. Unlike truancy, chronic absenteeism covers both excused and unexcused absences. Because the number of school instructional days varies from state to state, the exact cutoffs differ across the country. Still, the U.S. Department of Education has noted that 20 states reported that more than 30 percent of students missed at least three weeks of school in the 2022–2023 school year. More recently, findings from the American School District Panel and American Youth Panel by RAND and the Center on Reinvesting in Public Education have estimated that about 22 percent (or 10.8 million students) were chronically absent in the 2024–2025 school year.
With such considerable percentages of students missing at least 1 in 10 school days, it’s no surprise that chronic absenteeism is a top concern for many school districts. However, chronic absenteeism also presents a concern for public health officials. Education and health are closely linked:
- Students often miss school because of a health concern; students with chronic health conditions and/or generally fair or poor health are more likely to cite their health as a reason for missing school.
- Health-related absences can also highlight different experiences or needs between populations. For example, Hispanic students and White students were more likely than Asian and Black students to be chronically absent from school because of health in 2022. Further, students experiencing greater poverty in a given year were more likely to experience chronic absenteeism because of health during that same year.
- Missing a lot of school can affect students’ overall academic achievement, including their rates of on-time graduation from high school and enrollment in higher education. Additionally, educational attainment is linked to future health outcomes.
The links between health and education mean that chronic absence is also a relevant concern for public health leaders. Child Trends sat down with two public health leaders on how they use chronic absenteeism data to inform their understanding of young people’s health needs and how they work with the education sector to improve student health and support attendance. Watch the video here:
Acknowledgments: Child Trends would like to thank Ryan Skaggs and Clarie Miller for sharing their work with the California Department of Health and the New Mexico Department of Health, respectively. We also would like to thank Samantha Holquist and Matt Haugen for talking with Ryan and Clarie and for their initial contributions to the video.
Suggested citation: Garcia, K., Nichols, C., Pane, N., Harper, K., Holquist, S., & Haugen, M. (2026). How health agencies and schools can work together to respond to chronic absenteeism. Child Trends. DOI: 10.56417/4727x8406b
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