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Factors impacting implementation of nutrition and physical activity policies in rural schools

BACKGROUND: Rural Latino children have higher rates of obesity compared to non-Latino Whites. Schools are in a unique position to address rural childhood obesity through policies. While evidence exists on factors that promote or impede school-based physical activity (PA) and nutrition policies, only...

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Autores principales: Ausenhus, Caryn, Gold, Joshua M., Perry, Cynthia K., Kozak, Andrea, Wang, Monica L., Jang, Sou Hyun, Leong, Judy, Rodriguez, Edgar, Duggan, Catherine, Ko, Linda K.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9921364/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36765324
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15176-y
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author Ausenhus, Caryn
Gold, Joshua M.
Perry, Cynthia K.
Kozak, Andrea
Wang, Monica L.
Jang, Sou Hyun
Leong, Judy
Rodriguez, Edgar
Duggan, Catherine
Ko, Linda K.
author_facet Ausenhus, Caryn
Gold, Joshua M.
Perry, Cynthia K.
Kozak, Andrea
Wang, Monica L.
Jang, Sou Hyun
Leong, Judy
Rodriguez, Edgar
Duggan, Catherine
Ko, Linda K.
author_sort Ausenhus, Caryn
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Rural Latino children have higher rates of obesity compared to non-Latino Whites. Schools are in a unique position to address rural childhood obesity through policies. While evidence exists on factors that promote or impede school-based physical activity (PA) and nutrition policies, only a fraction has been in rural communities. This study seeks to understand 1) the knowledge and perceptions of school nutrition and PA policies and 2) barriers and facilitators to their implementation among rural school stakeholders from Washington State. METHODS: We conducted 20 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with school stakeholders (e.g., principals and school nutrition directors) from four K–12 school districts in the Lower Yakima Valley of Eastern Washington State. Thematic analysis was conducted using inductive, constant comparison approach to identify themes around knowledge and perceptions of policies and barriers and facilitators of policy implementation. RESULTS: Three main themes were identified: perceptions and knowledge of school PA and nutrition policies, barriers to policy implementation, and facilitators of policy implementation. The majority of stakeholders were supportive of school-based policies promoting PA and a healthy diet, even when lacking a specific understanding of these policies. Four subthemes were identified as barriers to policy implementation: viewing PA as a low priority, misuse of recess time, funding constraints, and lack of strong leadership. Facilitators of implementation included strong leadership at the district level, creating healthy norms through school-community linkages and pooling community resources to improve nutrition and PA among children. CONCLUSIONS: Schools provide a unique setting to promote healthy diet and PA behaviors among children and their families. Study findings show that while knowledge of specific nutrition and PA policies may vary, support for such policies were high among rural stakeholders. Study findings can inform policy development and support strategies for policy implementation in rural settings. Future studies may want to examine whether implementation of strategies addressing the barriers and enhancing facilitators lead to success in rural school settings. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-023-15176-y.
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spelling pubmed-99213642023-02-12 Factors impacting implementation of nutrition and physical activity policies in rural schools Ausenhus, Caryn Gold, Joshua M. Perry, Cynthia K. Kozak, Andrea Wang, Monica L. Jang, Sou Hyun Leong, Judy Rodriguez, Edgar Duggan, Catherine Ko, Linda K. BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: Rural Latino children have higher rates of obesity compared to non-Latino Whites. Schools are in a unique position to address rural childhood obesity through policies. While evidence exists on factors that promote or impede school-based physical activity (PA) and nutrition policies, only a fraction has been in rural communities. This study seeks to understand 1) the knowledge and perceptions of school nutrition and PA policies and 2) barriers and facilitators to their implementation among rural school stakeholders from Washington State. METHODS: We conducted 20 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with school stakeholders (e.g., principals and school nutrition directors) from four K–12 school districts in the Lower Yakima Valley of Eastern Washington State. Thematic analysis was conducted using inductive, constant comparison approach to identify themes around knowledge and perceptions of policies and barriers and facilitators of policy implementation. RESULTS: Three main themes were identified: perceptions and knowledge of school PA and nutrition policies, barriers to policy implementation, and facilitators of policy implementation. The majority of stakeholders were supportive of school-based policies promoting PA and a healthy diet, even when lacking a specific understanding of these policies. Four subthemes were identified as barriers to policy implementation: viewing PA as a low priority, misuse of recess time, funding constraints, and lack of strong leadership. Facilitators of implementation included strong leadership at the district level, creating healthy norms through school-community linkages and pooling community resources to improve nutrition and PA among children. CONCLUSIONS: Schools provide a unique setting to promote healthy diet and PA behaviors among children and their families. Study findings show that while knowledge of specific nutrition and PA policies may vary, support for such policies were high among rural stakeholders. Study findings can inform policy development and support strategies for policy implementation in rural settings. Future studies may want to examine whether implementation of strategies addressing the barriers and enhancing facilitators lead to success in rural school settings. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-023-15176-y. BioMed Central 2023-02-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9921364/ /pubmed/36765324 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15176-y Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Ausenhus, Caryn
Gold, Joshua M.
Perry, Cynthia K.
Kozak, Andrea
Wang, Monica L.
Jang, Sou Hyun
Leong, Judy
Rodriguez, Edgar
Duggan, Catherine
Ko, Linda K.
Factors impacting implementation of nutrition and physical activity policies in rural schools
title Factors impacting implementation of nutrition and physical activity policies in rural schools
title_full Factors impacting implementation of nutrition and physical activity policies in rural schools
title_fullStr Factors impacting implementation of nutrition and physical activity policies in rural schools
title_full_unstemmed Factors impacting implementation of nutrition and physical activity policies in rural schools
title_short Factors impacting implementation of nutrition and physical activity policies in rural schools
title_sort factors impacting implementation of nutrition and physical activity policies in rural schools
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9921364/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36765324
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15176-y
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