Quality report: Promotion of Health and Wellbeing in Comprehensive Schools – TEA
1. Data description
1.1 Statistical presentation
The dataset “Promotion of Health and Wellbeing in Comprehensive Schools”, collected by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), describes activities that promote health, wellbeing and a communal operating culture in comprehensive schools.
The data collection is part of the Benchmarking system of Health Promotion Capacity Building (TEAviisari), which has been developed in cooperation with THL, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the Ministry of Education and Culture, and the Finnish National Agency for Education. The benchmarking system reveals the work carried out by municipalities to promote the health and wellbeing of their residents in seven different sectors. In addition to comprehensive education, the service contains comparative data on health promo-tion activity in general upper secondary education, vocational educa-tion and training, sport, municipal strategic management, culture, and, since 2024, wellbeing services counties. Data collection from primary health care, previously collected from municipal health cen-tres, ended in 2022.
Data are collected every two years, starting from 2009. The statistics presented here are based on data collected in 2025. The data primarily reflect the situation at the time of collection, but some information must be collected from the previous academic year, such as data describing the monitoring of pupils’ wellbeing and health and realised resources. Data collection is carried out in cooperation with the Finnish National Agency for Education and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. An expert working group reviews the previous data collection and re-evaluates individual questions. The group includes representatives of headmasters. Feedback from schools is also considered, for example through a feedback question at the end of the data collection form, via the TEAviisari feedback channel, or by email.
1.2. Relevance
The results support the use of comprehensive wellbeing data in everyday school activities and in the management of student welfare services. The results have been used nationally, for example, in the preparation and monitoring of the Pupil and Student Welfare Act (1287/2013), which entered into force in August 2014. The data ena-ble schools, municipalities and wellbeing services counties to devel-op and evaluate their comprehensive school activities in relation to the national situation or to other municipalities and schools. The data are intended for headmasters and student welfare groups, municipal and city authorities, national and regional authorities, planners and researchers.
2. Data content of the statistics
The target population comprises comprehensive schools in mainland Finland. The module “Promotion of Health and Wellbeing in Comprehensive Schools” is divided into seven dimensions: commitment, management, monitoring and need assessment, resources, common practices, participation, and other core activities.
- Commitment describes, for example, the handling of national data sources in staff meetings and the organisation of school meals.
- Management describes, for example, the organisation of the student welfare group, the monitoring of absences, and the inspection of the health and safety of the school environment and the wellbeing of the community.
- Monitoring and need assessment describes, for example, the monitoring of bullying, harassment and problem situations, smoking and substance use, and disciplinary measures.
- Resources describes, for example, the work input of professionals providing student welfare services.
- Common practices describes, for example, the prevention of smoking and substance use, and accident prevention.
- Participation describes, for example, opportunities for pupils and parents or guardians to influence activities, and cooperation between home and school.
- Other core activities describe, for example, measures to increase physical activity during the school day.
3. Statistical processing
3.1. Source data
The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) compiles the data required for the “Promotion of Health and Wellbeing in Comprehen-sive Schools” entity directly from comprehensive schools. The data collection was carried out between October and December 2025. A total of 122 indicators were included in 2025.
The data describe the seven dimensions of health promotion activity, namely commitment, management, monitoring and needs analysis, resources, common practices, participation and other core activities. The dimensionspecific scores have been produced by scoring in-formation describing school activities in relation to legislation, rec-ommendations and good practices. The overall score is the average of the scores describing the dimensions. The indicators have been scored on a scale from 0 to 100. The score describes how well the promotion of health and wellbeing is implemented in the school. A score of 100 indicates that the activities are in all respects in ac-cordance with good practice and of good quality.
Example of scoring:
Question 20. Is the number of accidents requiring treatment by a school nurse or a doctor systematically monitored in the school?
At school premises (indoors or outdoors):
- No information (0 points)
- Not monitored (0 points)
- Monitored (50 points)
- Monitored and summarised (100 points)
During school or other travel:
- No information (0 points)
- Not monitored (0 points)
- Monitored (50 points)
- Monitored and summarised (100 points)
The municipality-specific score is a pupilweighted average of the schools in the municipality, and the regional score is a populationweighted average of the municipalitylevel data. A municipality-level score is presented in TEAviisari if at least half of the schools in the municipality have submitted their data. If there are fewer than three schools in a municipality, permission from all responding schools is required for the publication of the municipality-level score.
3.2. Data collection method
The data collection on the promotion of health and wellbeing in comprehensive schools is carried out in the autumn of oddnumbered years, every two years. The data collection questionnaire is sent electronically to the headteachers of all schools in mainland Finland. School contact details are obtained from the Finnish Nation-al Agency for Education’s Opintopolku system. The information is requested to be compiled in cooperation with the student welfare group. Reminders to submit the data are sent twice by email. If necessary, schools that have not responded are contacted by telephone in municipalities where more than 50% of schools have not responded. Effort is made to reach schools with many pupils.
3.3. Data validation
In 2025, the responses were mainly prepared by the headmaster together with the student welfare group or staff, or together with the school board, leadership team or teaching staff (86%). In 15% of schools, the preparation was carried out by the headteacher alone or together with administrative staff. The instruction was that the response should be prepared in cooperation with the student wel-fare group.
In 2025, to improve the quality and reliability of the data, the infor-mation on the human resources of student welfare services in schools, namely school nurses, doctors, psychologists and school social workers (a total of four indicators), was checked and reviewed systematically.
Numerical indicators measuring work input were selected for quality assurance. Based on the reported data, key figures describing the work input of each professional group were calculated. These schoolspecific key figures were sent by email to the contact persons for the data collection, and they were asked to verify the in-formation together with student welfare services staff.
The data were sent to all schools for verification. Schools were spe-cifically asked to pay attention to figures where the reported resource exceeded recommendations or statutory minimum levels by more than double. These figures were highlighted in red in the veri-fication file. The table sent also included the number of pupils in each school, obtained from the Vipunen statistical service. Schools were also able to revise these figures.
During the verification process, a total of 100 schools corrected their resource data. Of these, three also revised the number of pupils. In total, 198 data points were amended during the quality assurance process.
The implementation of compliance with the school meal recommendation was also examined as part of the 2025 quality assurance process. The data collection included the following question: Has the school complied with the school meal recommendation (“Eating and learning together 2017”) in the organisation of school lunches and snacks? “Yes” / “No” / “No information”.
The recommendation emphasises a range of aspects, from meal arrangements to participation, monitoring and evaluation. Schools’ responses to this question were examined in relation to responses concerning the timing of the first lunch and the time allocated for eating. According to the recommendation, a suitable time for lunch is approximately between 11:00 and 12:00, and the minimum time allocated for eating is 30 minutes. If the response to compliance was “Yes”, and the first lunch was served at approximately 10:45 or later and more than 25 minutes were allocated for eating, the recom-mendation was met. Otherwise, the response did not meet the criteria for a “Yes” response.
The above information was sent to schools for information and possible clarification. After clarifications and additions by schools, a total of 1,051 school responses were changed in relation to the school meal recommendation question and/or questions concerning minimum eating time or the timing of school lunch provision.
3.4. Data processing
The quality of the statistical data to be published is ensured, among other things, through audits carried out in connection with each data collection; see section 3.3 “Data validation”.
3.5. Data revision
This statistic is based on a data collection in which the data were obtained in full at one time, and the data are generally not supplemented later. Data concerning an individual school may be updated retrospectively if necessary.
4. Quality assessment of the statistics
4.1. Accuracy and reliability
The data in the statistics are based on factual and objective information reported by schools. The data describing school activities collected through the questionnaire were such that each school should have been able to provide them for the purposes of the data collection. Of the individual data items used in TEAviisari (122 in to-tal), 887 schools provided a complete response (i.e. no missing data). In 93 per cent of the forms, less than five per cent of the data were missing.
In 2025, in order to improve the quality and reliability of the data, the information on the work input of professionals providing student welfare services in schools, namely school nurses, doctors, psychologists and school social workers (a total of four indicators), was checked and reviewed systematically. In addition, responses of “Yes” to the question concerning compliance with the school meal recommendation were reviewed in relation to responses concerning the timing of the first lunch and the time allocated for eating lunch (see section 3.3).
4.2. Timeliness and punctuality
Data on the promotion of health and wellbeing in comprehensive schools are collected in the autumn of odd-numbered years, and the basic distributions by question are published in basic tables in May of the following year, broken down by school size measured by the number of pupils, statistical municipal grouping, school type (primary and/or lower secondary school, special school), language of instruction, Regional State Administrative Agency area, and wellbeing services county.
School-specific data for those schools that have given permission for the publication of results, as well as municipalitylevel data, are reported as scored results in TEAviisari in May. In TEAviisari, the data are presented as preanalysed visual graphs that are useful for the planning, management and evaluation of activities. TEAviisari pro-vides an overall picture and helps to identify the key strengths and development needs of school activities.
4.3. Coherence and comparability
In 2025, a total of 1,894 comprehensive schools submitted data (95% of all comprehensive schools in mainland Finland, with 100% of municipalities represented). No forms were found to be incompletely completed. The highest number of missing data points in a single form was 54 (out of 122 indicators). The response rate was highest in the Kainuu wellbeing services county (100% of schools) and lowest in the City of Helsinki (80% of schools). School size was not associ-ated with response activity: 95% of schools with more than 500 pupils submitted data, and 95% of schools with fewer than 100 pupils submitted data. The schools that submitted data covered 95% of all pupils in the country. School-specific data are published only with the consent of the school management. Permission for the publication of schoollevel results in TEAviisari was given by 79% of the schools that submitted data.
The dataset “Promotion of Health and Wellbeing in Comprehensive Schools” has been collected in 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023 and 2025. New indicators have been developed and mi-nor changes have been made to the data content. The core data content, comprising a total of 34 indicators, has remained unchanged since 2011. In 2025, there were a total of 122 indicators, of which 108 were also in use in 2023. More detailed information on the indicators can be found in the variable list. In 2025, the number of indicators that were the same as in 2023 by dimension was as follows: com-mitment 9/9, management 10/23, monitoring and needs analysis 39/39, resources 6/6, common practices 9/9, participation 28/29, and other core activities 7/7.
Variable list (in Finnish)
5. Institutional mandate
The production of the statistics is based on the Act on the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (688/2008) and the Statistics Act (280/2004).
Act on the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (Finlex (in Finnish and Swedish)
Statistics Act (Finlex) (in Finnish and Swedish)
6. Data sharing and publishing
The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare publishes the data at the time announced in advance in the statistics publication calendar. The data are released to all users simultaneously.
Statistics publication calendar
In addition, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare informs municipal officials (including directors of education, headteachers and wellbeing coordinators) of the publication date through separate TEAviisari information messages.
7. Statistical confidentiality
As an authority, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare has an obligation to report aggregated data on health and wellbeing for the entire country. The data used in the production of statistics are mainly confidential, and personal data may not be published. The protection of the data processed is based on the Act on the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (688/2008), the Statistics Act (280/2004), the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999), the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, and the Data Protection Act (1050/2018), as well as other regulations governing the activities of the institute.
THL’s datasets are protected at all stages of processing. The data and information systems can only be accessed by those who have the right to use a specific dataset for clearly defined purposes. Others do not have the possibility to view, process, modify or delete the data. Written instructions have been prepared to ensure the data protection of the completed statistics. All THL staff members are bound by confidentiality.
Act on the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (Finlex (in Finnish and Swedish)
Statistics Act (Finlex) (in Finnish and Swedish)
Act on the Openness of Government Activities (Finlex) (in Finnish and Swedish)
EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU) (in Finnish)
Data Pro-tection Act (Finlex) (in Finnish and Swedish)
The data presented in these statistics are organisationlevel data and do not contain personal data concerning individuals.
8. Special issues concerning the 2025 statistics
In all municipalities, at least half of the schools submitted their data. If a municipality has fewer than three schools, data are presented only if all schools that submitted data have given permission for publication. A total of 13 municipalities is not presented on this basis: Jokioinen, Kyyjärvi, Lemi, Mäntyharju, Merikarvia, Paltamo, Pukkila, Pyhäjärvi, Ranua, Ristijärvi, Sauvo, Sonkajärvi and Taivalkoski.