(From the ISHN Member information service) As American legislators debate the watering down of their school food policy guidelines, an international report shows few, if any reductions in childhood obesity rates and as researchers report that physical activity levels have little effect on obesity and overweight, a study reported in the British Medical Journal in May 2014 might be considered as part of an overall push-back against the progress made in recent years. The British study reported "The Active for Life Year 5 (AFLY5) intervention took place at 60 primary schools in the south west of England and involved over 2,000 children aged 8-10 years over the study period. The trial was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research programme. The study was designed to overcome many of the limitations of previous trials in this area. For example, the study included a large number of children and used accelerometers to measure activity levels. The intervention consisted of teacher training, lesson plans and interactive homework activities, and written material for school newsletters and parents. Schools were randomly allocated to either the intervention or control arm (control schools received standard teaching). The researchers found no evidence that the intervention increased time spent in moderate or vigorous physical activity or reduced time spent in sedentary behaviour when both were assessed using accelerometers. There was also no effect on child reported fruit and vegetable consumption. Further analysis found, however, that the intervention was effective in reducing child reported time spent in front of a screen at weekends and self reported consumption of snacks and high energy drinks. Despite being one of the largest trials in this area to date, and taking account of limitations of previous trials, the authors conclude that the AFLY5 intervention "is not effective at increasing levels of physical activity, decreasing sedentary behaviour, and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption in primary school children." Read more>>
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(From the ISHN Member information service) SHPPS is a national survey periodically conducted to assess school health policies and practices at the state, district, school, and classroom levels. The 2012 study collected data at the state and district levels
only. School-and classroom-level data collection will take place in 2014. This report is on school health coordination activities. 66.0% of states had a person, such as a state school health coordinator, responsible for overseeing or coordinating all of the state’s school health and safety policies and activities. 53.7% of districts had a district-level school health coordinator who oversees the district’s health and safety policies and activities. 68.8% of states had one or more than one group (e.g., a committee, council, or team) of people formally charged with coordinating state-level school health-related activities. 65.4% of districts had one or more than one group (e.g., a school health council, committee, or team) at the district level that offered guidance on the development of policies or coordinated activities that are health-related. Read more>> (From the ISHN Member information service) The nutrition related data from the US School Health Policies & Practices Survey (2012 Results shows that over 80% of school districts requited instruction about nutrition at all grade levels, 80.8% of districts required all schools to offer breakfast to students and 96.6% of districts required all schools to offer lunch to students. The percentage of districts that made information available to students on the nutrition and caloric content of foods available to them increased from 46.0% in 2000 to 68.2% in 2012. 72.5% of states evaluated the implementation of local wellness policies at the district or school level. 35.5% of districts had no single individual responsible for ensuring compliance with the district’s wellness policy. 73.5% of states provided funding for professional development or offered professional development to those who teach health education on nutrition and dietary behavior. The percentage of districts that provided funding for professional development or
offered professional development to those who teach health education on nutrition and dietary behavior increased from 43.3% in 2000 to 62.9% in 2012. Read more>> (From the ISHN Member information service) The Massachusetts Essential School Health Services (ESHS) program to demonstrate the cost-benefit of school health services delivered by full-time registered nurses.Standard cost-benefit analysis methods were used to estimate the costs and benefits of the ESHS program compared with a scenario involving no school nursing service. Data from the ESHS program report and other published studies were used. A total of 477 163 students in 933 Massachusetts ESHS schools in 78 school districts received school health services during the 2009-2010 school year. Costs of nurse staffing and medical supplies incurred by 78 ESHS districts during the 2009-2010 school year were measured as program costs. Program benefits were measured as savings in medical procedure costs, teachers’ productivity loss costs associated with addressing student health issues, and parents’ productivity loss costs associated with student early dismissal and medication administration. During the 2009-2010 school year, at a cost of $79.0 million, the ESHS program prevented an estimated $20.0 million in medical care costs, $28.1 million in parents’ productivity loss, and $129.1 million in teachers’ productivity loss. As a result, the program generated a net benefit of $98.2 million to society. For every dollar invested in the program, society would gain $2.20. Eighty-nine percent of simulation trials resulted in a net benefit. Read more>>
Project-based learning, based on a constructivist approach to education, is highly recommended in health-personal-social development (HPSD) education. So a recent post from Edutopia which describes four free web tools for creating student portfolios and projects inline will be of interest. Kidblog is unique among the web tools featured here because it is built by teachers for teachers. Kidblog provides teachers with everything they need to help students create their digital portfolios safely. It gives teachers administrative control over student blogs and accounts and the settings which are set as private by default, can be opened up to enable parents to view their children's work. If your school is fueled by Google Apps for Education, then using Google Sites to create student portfolios, or "Googlios," makes perfect sense. With Sites, students can create media-rich websites to display their work throughout the school year. Evernote can serve as a viable option for creating student portfolios. Evernote is the Swiss Army knife of organization. In other words, it does just about everything. It allows students to write, take photos, record audio, upload content and more with the ability to tag items, create notebooks for organization and share content socially. Something else that makes Evernote so versatile is that it can sync across multiple computers and mobile devices. Three Ring is worthy of consideration as well. As with Evernote, students can create and upload content from their own devices and tag, search and share their portfolios. However, what Three Ring offers that Evernote doesn't is teacher-created class accounts. Read more>> (An item from the ISHN Member information service)
A team of Quebec researchers and government officials has been working to develop a new model for school health promotion that results in better integration with the goals and mandates of school systems and effective interventions based on sound theoretical foundations and essential knowledge gleaned from many years of experience. An interim report and synthesis, published in French, is titled " For integrated and effective promotion and prevention interventions in the school context: theoretical foundations, model and essential knowledge". In order to improve the compatibility of health promoting and prevention interventions with the mission of the school, its policies and operations, the National Institute of Public Health (INSPQ ) was given the following mandate .
Working from the synthesis of expert recommendations in the report Success , health and well -being: to act effectively in the school context produced by the INSPQ in 2010 ( Palluy et al , 2010. ), the INSPQ is to:
A second report will include a distribution of objectives of educational interventions depending on the stage of development of young people and their reality, identification and prioritization of essential elements common to all the themes in the recommendations section school, family, community ( objects of environmental interventions). A process of co-construction is underway to improve the model , identify ways of achieving promotion interventions and prevention better integrated in the school context and produce tools tailored to the needs of managers and players on both networks (health and education ) . This process is being conducted jointly with the Ministry of Health and Social Services and the Ministry of Education, Recreation and Sport. This process will take place from September 2012 to June 2014 , in collaboration with actors in the health and education at three levels of intervention ( national, regional and local). With the coming of the process, the enhanced model will become a common reference for effective interventions for promotion and prevention in school context for managers and stakeholders on both networks. Planning tools and intervention will be made available to stakeholders . Read the interim report (Published in French) MPs in England have launched an inquiry into the future of PSHE and sex and relationships education (SRE) in schools. The Education Select Committee has called for evidence to help with its investigation, which will tackle a range of issues including whether PSHE should be a statutory subject. The cross-party inquiry comes after an Ofsted subject report last year judged that PSHE was not good enough in 40 per cent of the 50 schools it visited – primary and secondary. The report – Not Yet Good Enough – also found that half of secondaries needed to improve its SRE, while many teachers lacked training to tackle sensitive or controversial issues in both PSHE and SRE. Inspectors expressed concern about a lack of “high-quality, age-appropriate SRE” in more than a third of schools which they said could leave children vulnerable to “inappropriate sexual behaviours and sexual exploitation”.
Read more>> The report notes that "Vaccines and immunization have created a healthier world. Progress is being made towards polio eradication. Measles and neonatal tetanus deaths are on the decline and new vaccines are being
introduced into the national programmes of low -and middle-income countries with associated reductions in morbidity and mortality. Still, national governments, development partners and international agencies must invest more to meet the Decade of Vaccines’ goals of disease eradication or elimination and to reduce mortality and morbidity from vaccine-preventable diseases. However, the report also notes that :
This report, submitted to the WHO World Health Assembly, summarizes the progress of WHO reform since the report to the last World Health Assembly. It provides an update on developments in each of the three broad areas of reform
(programmes and priority-setting, governance and management);reviews the challenges to implementation; and describes the steps being taken by the Secretariat to strengthen planning,implementation and monitoring of reform activities in view of the second stage of the evaluation of reform. highlights include:
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