Min Jung Ko, MPH¹, Mi Kyung Kim, PhD¹, Yujeong Ha, MPH¹, Bo Youl Choi, MD, MPH, PhD¹, and Miyong Kim, RN, PhD². (1) Department of Preventive Medicine, Hanyang University, # 17 Haengdang-dong, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, 133-791, South Korea, 02-2290-0660, mjungk@hotmail.com, (2) The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, 525 N. Wolfe St., Baltimore, MD 21205

Obesity and hypercholesterolemia among school-aged children has been an emerging epidemic in Korea because of the sedentary life style that many of them are subscribing due to highly completive academic environment. Although this population needs urgent intervention to prevent serious health consequences, there is paucity of intervention research in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to report the preliminary findings of a pilot intervention study that was designed to evaluate a school based health promotion program in Korea entitled, "Healthy life for school-aged children." This multi-site, randomized intervention trial was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of three different types of interventions. A total of 8 schools (4 urban; 4 rural) and 569 individual students (4th grade) were participated. The schools were randomly assigned to one for 4 groups :(1) a structured education, (2) simulation game software + website intervention, (3) intervention (1) + (2), and (4) control. This 11-week intervention was delivered by teachers and data was collected before, during (6weeks post-intervention) and after the intervention was implemented. We used both paired t-test and Generalized Estimated Equations for the outcome evaluation. The results indicate that the participants from mixed intervention (3) were most benefited from the intervention: the participants from mixed intervention group (city) maintained the healthy behaviors (i.e. regular physical activity and healthy eating etc.) about 2.03 times higher when those compare with those in control group (city) (p<0.05). The results of detailed analysis of outcome data and process evaluation will also be presented.

Learning Objectives:

• (1)Identify major factors influencing the effectivenss of school-based health promotion programs in Korea

Keywords: School-Based Programs, Evaluation

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
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.