Purpose: Physical activity (PA), including how and in what context it is included, is associated with numerous health benefits. However, a large proportion of youth fail to meet recommended PA guidelines. One potential solution is to utilise and integrate technology, such as device-based assessments of PA in combination with personalised feedback, to enhance youth's understanding of, and motivation for, PA. We are increasingly using monitors with multiple tri-axial sensors operating at high frequencies, producing large volumes of data, that are difficult to interpret. Technology enables the creation of novel ways to contextualise physical activity levels (PAL) through various tangible, visual and audible outputs. This presentation will explore the power of co-creation, illustrating how youth’s creative minds can lead to innovative ways to promote and translate individual health behaviours.

Methods: The iterative co-design process leading to the development of simple data representations, including those you can touch, hear and/or see, will be evaluated. The role of ‘model (i.e., using PlayDoh), show and tell’ as a youth-centred methodology to explore perceptions of representing PA will be discussed, with data presented from semi-structured interviews and focus groups with children, parents, teachers and stakeholders.

Results: The approaches taken assimilate large volumes of complex data into one simple format. Whilst some data representation processes highlight patterns within data that enable researchers to identify different postures and behaviours, they are generally not accessible or meaningful to children. Whilst 3D-Printing and LED light-strip visualisations provide less context, they are easily interpretable and may be more accessible by children. Indeed, children were enthusiastic for the concept of visualising PA through both lights and a tangible object, as well as audibly, demonstrating significant untapped potential to enhance the translation of important health messages.

Conclusions: Results suggest that data feedback, irrespective of form, may offer a unique strategy for enhancing both researchers and participants’ knowledge of PAL. Indeed, such approaches may facilitate positive behaviour change, likely through embedding the target audience in the development process. Future research should seek to utilise co-design processes to enhance children’s PAL through more effective intervention designs, as well as associated dissemination.  

Purpose: Since the release of the World Health Organisation’s Guidelines for physical activity, sedentary behaviours and sleep for children under 5 years of age, there is increasing interest in examining how young children, globally, perceive and experience these ‘24hr movement behaviours’ in their daily lives. However, conducting qualitative research with young children presents a host of challenges. Additional layers of complexity come into play when undertaking international research across culturally, linguistically, and socio-economically diverse populations.

Methods: Interviews and focus groups were held with 3-5-year-old children from rural and urban areas in Australia, Chile, China, India, Morocco and South Africa. The children shared their experiences, perceptions and preferences around the 24hr movement behaviours, constructed their ‘ideal day’ and discussed barriers and enablers of outdoor play. Individual and collective researcher reflexivity guided the decision making as this research was designed, conducted and the findings interpreted.

Results: The findings showed that there is variation in how the global trends disrupting physical activities, sedentary behaviours and sleep in daily life, affect young children. Central to engaging young children in a meaningful way to examine this topic, was an awareness of the diverse contextual influences on how 24hr movement behaviours are conceptualised, and consideration of the effects of contextual nuances on methodological choices. Identifying suitable methods, developing appropriate questions, building rapport, managing power dynamics and being cognisant of non-verbal behaviour, shaped the design and data collection processes, while utilizing the Framework Method allowed for a systematic yet flexible approach to the analysis. The interpretation of findings was grounded in each researchers’ knowledge of the local context, coupled with an examination of their own biases.

Conclusion: The voices of children have been recognized as a powerful force for change, and young children’s viewpoints need to be considered in policy and practice decisions regarding the role of 24hr movement behaviours in the healthy growth and development of children. Conducting participatory research to elicit young children’s perspectives requires considerable researcher reflexivity. Future research should investigate how to effectively engage young children in the discourse on how to promote healthy levels of 24hr movement behaviours. 

Purpose: Neighbourhood environments can have significant impacts on children's wellbeing. There is a paucity of research that has examined neighbourhood and health priorities, strengths, and needs from children’s perspectives. We used child-centred methods to understand the meanings children place on neighbourhoods and health, to identify priorities for health-promoting neighbourhoods, and to determine child-preferred dissemination techniques.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional participatory research project with children across four primary schools in Aotearoa New Zealand. Creative, play-based methods were used with children to introduce the topic. Children worked in groups with researcher support to refine descriptions of health, neighbourhoods, and statements for what makes a healthy neighbourhood. Children were then supported to choose a dissemination method from a suite of options and develop outputs for dissemination with stakeholders. A range of researcher-generated output types are proposed from this research, targeted to specific stakeholders. Data used to generate outputs included researcher written reflections; and children’s textual, graphical, and audio-visual data collected from post-it notes, posters, art, 3-D models, presentations, and videos. This presentation will share definitions and messages generated by children, and outline and reflect on the methods used to generate dissemination outputs for schools.

Findings: A diverse array of topics were identified by children in the context of health-promoting neighbourhoods, including the importance of nature, reducing litter, being physically active, maintaining social connections, promoting mental health, reducing smoking, and medicalisation of health and health promotion (e.g., having access to hospitals). Children created a range of dissemination outputs to share their messages, including videos, stop-start motion movies, posters, presentations, plays, and 3-D models.

Conclusions: When given the opportunity to share their ideas, children generate unique and localised insights about healthy neighbourhoods that are specific to children but also consider the wider community. Children had a wide range of ideas and preferences for dissemination outputs. Use of creative research techniques and allowing a range of options is recommended to engage children and support them to share information in ways that are meaningful to them. School-focused dissemination outputs have prioritised sharing all work prepared by children. Policy/planning dissemination is the next stage of this research.