Funding outcome

Childhood is a critical stage to develop healthy behaviours, and the school years are an important developmental period in which children are learning and growing. School-based health promotion interventions using the Comprehensive School Health (CSH) approach have been found effective in improving healthy eating, physical activity, and mental wellness. The CSH approach adapts to the context of the school and community to create and sustain a health promoting school culture. The interconnected environments of school, home, and community are key to the CSH approach, however, there is minimal research that has been conducted at the community-level. This project will be a qualitative study involving the CSH intervention APPLE Schools (A Project Promoting healthy Living for Everyone in schools). APPLE Schools is an evidence-based, innovative, globally recognized intervention impacting the lives of 20,000 students across Canada annually. The study will explore the impact of APPLE Schools beyond the school walls and seek to understand if and how changes are made in the community to improve health behaviours. An instrumental case study approach will be taken for this research, focusing on the setting of Fort McMurray, Alberta. Fort McMurray was chosen for the study as there is community-wide buy-in, and all 21 elementary schools in the city are APPLE Schools. As such, there is potential for broad community impact to be studied. Community stakeholders will be interviewed to explore the impact of APPLE Schools beyond school walls to understand if and how changes were made in the community. Additionally, Go-Along interviews will be used to allow researchers to experience and observe various health promoting spaces in the community. The findings from this research will be transformative in informing future health promotion interventions within school communities across Canada. An understanding of the community-level impact of CSH will promote collaboration and community engagement to create more effective and sustainable CSH interventions. Ultimately, increasing the effectiveness of CSH will result in improved health outcomes for children and families.