Details

Purpose: This symposium seeks to identify opportunities for advancing implementation science research to support sustained delivery of nutrition and physical activity (PA) interventions in schools. The symposium will include the perspectives of implementation researchers and practitioners and will feature two case studies of interventions including strategies designed to enhance sustainment.

Rationale: Governments have internationally invested billions in the implementation and scale-up of nutrition and PA interventions in school settings. Implementation science methods have identified strategies capable of achieving initial implementation of such interventions at a population level. However, “initiative decay” is common for interventions in these settings. Without strategies to support sustained program implementation, the potential public health benefits of evidence based interventions (EBIs) cannot be achieved, the substantial investment in achieving initial implementation is wasted, and community trust and support for future programmes is diminished. Despite the importance of sustaining program implementation, little research has been dedicated specifically to identifying and developing strategies that support EBI sustainability, leaving policy makers and practitioners bereft of an evidence base of how best to support this.

Objectives: To: i) examine the extent to which PA and nutrition public health research has focused on sustainability and how this has changed over time; ii) identify strategies to enhance sustainment of a school wellness intervention and inform measurement; and iii) apply a theoretical framework to design a sustainability intervention to support school scheduling of PA.

Summary: First, Dr Alix Hall will present the findings of a review which explore the extent to which public health research, in particular studies focusing on PA and nutrition, assess sustainability and whether this has changed over time. Second, Dr Gabriella McLoughlin will describe a study that examined strategies to enhance sustainment of a large-scale school wellness intervention. Lastly, Dr Nicole Nathan will describe factors that influence sustainment of schools scheduling of PA and the application of theoretical frameworks in the development of an intervention to sustain its implementation. The symposium will include a discussant Dr Taren Swindle who will reflect on the presentations and facilitate a panel and audience discussion about the gaps in the current evidence-base and what research questions and methods are needed to advance sustainment research in nutrition and PA. 

Format: This symposium will include a chair, three presentations and a discussant. The introduction by the chair will be 10 minutes and help frame the presentations in the context of current available evidence (Dr Swindle), the three presentations (15 minutes each) and the chair will facilitate an interactive discussion (15 minutes). 

Speaker