An Evaluation of "Growing Healthy Places: Mississauga"

Condition(s) studied

Investigational drug(s) / intervention(s)

Community Co-designed Physical Activity and Diet Intervention Package: A package of 4-6 diet and physical activity interventions selected from a long-list of potential interventions and adapted to the unique school and neighborhood context via consultation with community stakeholders. Intervention packages are multi-level (i.e. targeting at least two of individual, external and structural environments), target elements of both diet and physical activity, and are health equity oriented in terms of both access and improvement. Long-list potential interventions include items related to school intramural programming, active transport, health education, community recreational programming, and structural/public space design improvements.

Study summary

The goal of this intervention study is to learn if community co-designed activities to improve diet and physical activity can impact the health of children ages 6-13 in Mississauga, Canada. The main questions it aims to answer are:

1. Do the community co-designed interventions improve health-related quality of life of children after one year and two years?
2. Do the community co-designed interventions improve the physical activity and eating behaviors of children after one year and two years?

Ten intervention and 12 control schools will take part in this study. The schools were recruited from the Mississauga area using an application process. Selection and group assignment involved a multi-stage process with initial randomization followed by manual adjustment (to balance groups on key observable characteristics and respond to stakeholder concerns about spillovers and implementation feasibility).

Researchers will compare students in schools that receive the interventions to students in schools that receive no interventions to see if the interventions improve health-related quality of life, increase physical activity and improve eating behaviors.

Participants will:

* attend participating elementary or middle schools (in either intervention neighborhoods or control neighborhoods)
* complete an anonymous questionnaire about their wellbeing, physical activity, and eating behaviors at baseline, after one year, and after two years
* potentially participate in school and community programs (if in an intervention school neighborhood)

Eligibility

Primary outcome measure(s)

• Health-related Quality of Life as assessed by KIDSCREEN-10 index — Baseline, one-year follow-up, two-year follow-up.
  Health-related quality of life will be proxied by the KIDSCREEN-10 scale, which is developed from 27-item KIDSCREEN-27 scale and assesses health-related quality of life on five dimensions: physical, psychological, autonomy and parent relations, peers and social support, school environment. Each item uses a 5-point Likert-style response based on how strong the respondent is feeling or the frequency of doing / feeling things over the last week. KIDSCREEN instruments were originally designed for ages 8-18 but have been validated in ages 6-18. Item wording is slightly adapted for typical Canadian phrasing. Responses to each item are coded 1-5, items scores are summed, and the total score is linearly transformed to a 0-100 scale. A higher score corresponds to a higher health-related quality of life.

Trial sites (1)

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