The Vitamin D Gap
Severe Vitamin D deficiencies may cause cognitive impairment, missed school days, and affect a student's academic ability. More importantly it can also lead to high risks of death from cardiovascular disease, asthma, cancer, diabetes and other serious physical and mental health problems. It, along with other elevated health risks for African-American children may provide reasons for the widening so-called "achievement gap" in standardized test results.
Recent studies find 98% of African-Americans and 90% of Mexican-Americans are Vitamin D deficient. That compares with 72% of whites. Of those, 27% of African-Americans and 8.5% of Mexican-Americans suffer from severe Vitamin D deficiency as