Schools for Healthy Lifestyles (SHL) is a community-based, school health promotion program targeted towards Oklahoma County’s at-risk elementary school children. A strong infrastructure of partnerships has been formed with the aim of teaching children healthy lifestyles including priority health concerns of physical activity, physical fitness, and prevention of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and injury. Reduction of morbidity and mortality related to the aforementioned priorities is the chief goal of SHL. To quantitatively demonstrate the effectiveness of SHL, a formal evaluation of the outcomes and impact of the program is vital. The design of the evaluation study is a pre-post design with a non-randomized comparison group. Five of the nineteen participating schools were randomly selected as the intervention group and were matched with a non-participating comparison school. With the cooperation of school principals and physical education teachers, active parental consent was obtained from 710 participating fourth and fifth graders. Two primary outcomes were evaluated: 1) Knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors surrounding the priority health concerns, and 2) level of physical fitness. To assess outcome 1, a questionnaire targeting the priority health concerns was developed. When possible, questions were derived from previously validated instruments. Fitnessgram, developed by Prudential and Cooper Institute for Aerobic Research, was used to measure physical fitness. A team of trained personnel administered all testing. Descriptive statistics and significant differences between intervention and comparison schools at baseline will be shared. From this foundation, observed changes in knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and physical fitness from pre-testing to post-testing will be discussed.
Learning Objectives: 1. Describe the goals of Schools for Healthy Lifestyles. 2. Identify potential partners when forming a community-based, school health promotion program. 3. Discuss issues that may arise when attempting to evaluate schools that voluntarily participate in a program and those which agree to serve as comparisons. 4. List the components of physical fitness measured by fitnessgram
Keywords: School-Based Programs, Evaluation
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.