Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Dissemination of Action Schools! BC (AS!BC)

October 17, 2019 updated by: Heather McKay, University of British Columbia

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Dissemination of Action Schools! BC: A Socio-ecological Intervention to Increase Physical Activity and Healthy Eating in School Children

Childhood obesity is a major public health threat. Physical activity and healthy eating contribute to the maintenance of healthy weights. Individually oriented behaviour change programs may not be able to overcome the influence of what has been called an obesogenic environment. Action Schools! BC (AS! BC) used a socio-ecological approach to enhance opportunities for physical activity and healthy eating in elementary schools and created systemic change at the provincial level. AS! BC helps elementary schools customize action plans, based upon their local context, to contribute to the health and well-being of children and the school community. Pilot research showed that AS! BC was an effective and feasible model. The provincial dissemination of AS! BC has been launched and partners from across many sectors are involved to enhance the sharing of knowledge and increase the implementation of the AS! BC model across British Columbia. The dissemination provides an unprecedented opportunity for evaluating how changing the school environment can promoted healthy weights in children. The dissemination was evaluated using a cluster randomized design; 30 elementary schools (n = 1529 consented children) from four (out of five) provincial health authorities volunteered to participate.

The primary goals of the research are:

  1. to determine if the Action Schools! BC (AS! BC) model is an effective approach to positively change school environments and health related behaviours of children from diverse geographical regions and cultural groups, and
  2. to determine if the supports provided to schools or the community context influence the uptake and use of the AS! BC model.

This research will contribute to the science of obesity prevention and knowledge use as well as public health practice.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

1529

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

    • British Columbia
      • Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, V5Z 1M9
        • University of British Columbia - Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute
      • Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, V8P 5C2
        • University of Victoria

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

8 years to 12 years (Child)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Student attends a school that has agreed to participate in the study
  • Student's classroom teacher has agreed to participate in the study
  • Student is in grade 4 or 5 at start of study
  • Student participates in regular physical education classes at school
  • Student's parents provide consent

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Student does not attend a school that has agreed to participate in the study
  • Student's classroom teacher does not agree to participate in the study
  • Student is not in grade 4 or 5 at start of study
  • Student does not participate in regular physical education classes at school
  • Student's parents do not provide consent

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Usual Practice
School continues with regular programming
Experimental: Action Schools! BC
School adopts the AS!BC model
AS! BC applies a socioecological, whole school approach to promote healthy living within the elementary school context. Schools are provided with the tools and support needed to create customized action plans that promote physical activity (PA) and healthy living across six Action Zones (School Environment, Scheduled Physical Education (PE), Classroom Action, Family and Community, Extra-curricular, School Spirit). Generalist teachers receive training and resources to implement their Action Plan with the ultimate goal of providing students with 150 minutes of PA/week. The model is choice-based; teachers are asked to provide 15 additional minutes of PA/day within the Classroom Action Zone. The activities require minimal equipment and can be performed in the classroom, hallway or on the school playground.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Physical activity opportunities delivered (minutes/week)
School level; as measured by Weekly Teacher Logs and Interim Reports
School environment scores
School level; as measured by a modified School Health Inventory
Height (cm)
Student level
Weight (kg)
Student level
Body mass index (kg/m^2)
Student level
Physical fitness (Fitnessgram (C))
Student level
Children's leisure time physical activity (PAQ-C)
Student level
Children's dietary intake
Student level; 24 hour recall and food frequency survey
Physical activity interventions planned
School level; as measured by Action Plans

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Contextual factors surrounding the use of the intervention

School level

  • School and community partnership survey
  • Annual focus groups with school planning teams, regional advisory committees, parent advisory committees, the local healthy living alliance
  • Semi-structured telephone interviews with school administrators, AS! BC regional facilitators, public health nursing staff, local nutritionist, municipal recreation staff and representatives of non-government organizations involved in chronic disease prevention locally
  • Review of AS! BC annual reports and action plans
  • Participant observation form to assess development of communities of practice

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

April 1, 2005

Primary Completion (Actual)

June 1, 2007

Study Completion (Actual)

June 1, 2007

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 5, 2011

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 5, 2011

First Posted (Estimate)

August 9, 2011

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

October 21, 2019

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 17, 2019

Last Verified

October 1, 2019

More Information

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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